No Technology Is Invincible (The Death Prophecies-Book Four 4) (7 page)

“Then I wouldn’t go out in space.”

“There are circumstances where serving on a Fleet Warships removes the choice. If the ship is damaged, you wear it or die.”

Gabby looked at the grey uniform and shook her head, “I think I’d rather die than wear that.”

Gabe sighed and took one of Gabby’s hands, “Captain, you’ve fought your entire life to be the best. Refusal to be fitted for armor will force you to take a position in fleet operations and you’ll never be allowed to board a ship.” Gabby started to speak and Gabe quickly said, “No one will see you wearing it but me. You’ll only wear it when you’re onboard and you can change into a regular uniform when we land.” Gabby stared at him and Gabe shrugged, “I have to admit that I wasn’t excited initially about you going on this mission with me.” Gabby’s mouth opened and Gabe quickly said, “But Admiral Connor is right about your going. I’ve been struggling with how I’m going to lead our fleets against the Builders and not get all of our forces killed. I have to go to their galaxy and see what weaknesses they have. I need you there seeing things I miss. I need you on this mission.”

Gabby closed her mouth and sighed. After a moment she stood up, took the grey uniform off the hanger, and walked to the dressing room. Gabe waited and knew she was shy beyond anything normal. He would not make her feel bad when she came out. He heard her say from inside the dressing room, “I’ve been dreading this since my third year at the Academy. I thought that I’d be assigned to Intelligence and not have to wear one of these.”

“Your armor won’t work without it. It can’t make the connections to your body if the uniform is too loose.”

“I know. Alright, I’m coming out.” Gabe saw the dressing room door open and Gabby stepped out. He was determined not to show anything in his expression but his mouth fell open. Gabby saw him and immediately rushed back into the dressing room. Gabe rushed to the door and quickly said, “Why are you so shy about being seen in the uniform?”

“I look atrocious.”

“You do not! You’re incredibly…”

“What?’

“Beautiful. Surely you can see that?”

“No, I’m not!”

“Gabby, trust me on this, you are.”

Gabby stuck her head out of the door, “That’s the first time you called me Gabby.”

Gabe’s head went back and he sighed, “Wearing that uniform is not something you will ever need to worry about.”

Gabby stepped out and looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the wall. After a moment she looked at Gabe, “I think you’re right.”

“How can you not know it?”

Gabby looked back at the mirror and shrugged, “I guess I’ve never focused on my appearance. I’ve always accepted that I’m…”

Gabe stood up, “I’m going to send the Lieutenant back in. Have her give you ten grey uniforms to take with you and then she can fit you for your armor. Once that’s done, have her schedule it for immediate installation on our ship. We need to be going shortly.”

Gabby looked at him and nodded, “Yes, Sir.”

Gabe left and said to the Lieutenant standing outside the door, “Get her uniforms ready and get the armor installed today.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The Lieutenant entered the room and saw Gabby staring at herself in the mirror. Gabby saw the Lieutenant’s expression and said, “Is something wrong?”

The Lieutenant shook her head, “No, I just wish I had what you’ve got.” Gabby smiled and then laughed.

• • •

Gabe walked back toward the Eyes and knew Gabby was going to say that she always accepted that she was ugly. She had an incredible body but her hair and glasses now made her look like a sexy librarian. What a dichotomy. He sighed and thought about Janell. He shook his head swiftly and forced himself to focus on the mission.

“P
oul, I’m moving us out of the hangar if everything is completed.”

“The last of our food stores have been delivered and put away in storage. I need to fire the blasters in open space before we enter the black hole.”

“I’ll stop us outside the event horizon for you to fire them, Poul.”

“That would be good.”

Gabe looked at Gabby, “How are you coming with mastering the scanners?”

“I need to use them outside of this hangar to fully understand their capabilities. Poul has been a great asset in teaching me how to use them.”

“I’m going to stop outside the Solar System and give you some time to scan from there.”

Gabby nodded, “I’ll notify Fleet that we’re going to do some active scans.”

“That’s a good idea.” Gabe almost shook his head, he should have thought of that. He lifted the ship off the hangar floor and moved it through the giant door. The Prophet’s Eyes moved out over the tarmac and he gently activated the nose thrusters and then the rear main thrusters. The vessel accelerated into the afternoon sky at an incredible speed and in less than a minute, they were out of the Earth’s atmosphere and Poul activated the stardrive. A moment later, the Eyes stopped outside the orbit of Neptune.

“I’m running an active scan of the Solar System.” Gabe leaned back in his chair and heard Gabby exclaim, “Oh my third aunt!”

“What?”

“This scan has everything on it. Every ship, every remote facility, along with a clear view of Earth’s surface.”

Poul said, “Run a passive scan.”

Gabby nodded and pressed several buttons on her console, “Poul, the passive scan shows most of what the active scan showed.”

“I thought it would. The scientific advances in receiving weak energy signals has greatly improved over the last six months. We’ll be using passive scans during most of this mission.”

Gabby looked at Gabe and saw him nod, “Poul’s right. We will do all we can to remain undetected.” Gabe looked up, “Poul, take us to the event horizon.”

Gabby looked at the main monitor and one moment she was looking at Neptune and the next she saw the giant spinning black hole. She looked at Gabe, “This is impossible. How can the Eyes move so quickly over such vast distances?”

Gabe shrugged, “Poul, would you like to explain how you do it?”

“Actually, I really don’t entirely understand it either. I believe that the stardrive the civilization used that originally built me combines with the one being used by Earth Warships and allows instantaneous travel over extreme distances.”

“Why don’t we use it with our other ships?”

Gabe smiled, “I’ll answer that, Poul.” Gabe looked at Gabby, “In order for us to examine the original stardrive, it would require us to disassemble the central core of Poul’s main computer. No one is willing to take the risk that we would lose Poul and the Stardrive if that effort failed.”

Gabby stared at Gabe and then slowly nodded, “It would be like killing the goose that lays golden eggs to determine how it does it. You’d lose the goose as well as the eggs it provided.”

“Something like that.”

Gabby looked up, “Poul, can’t you just tell the scientists what they need to know about your stardrive.”

“Gabby, tell me how you raise your middle finger instead of your index finger.”

“Uhhh…I just do it.”

“That doesn’t explain it. Perhaps we should dissect you to find out.”

Gabby smiled, “No, I think that wouldn’t be called for in this instance.”

“Nor in mine.”

Gabby sat back in her chair, “Your point is taken, Poul.”

Gabe activated the weapons panel, “Poul, I’m going to take a shot at that dust cloud off the port bow.”

“Use full power, Gabe and I’ll send a scan to Gabby’s console.” Gabe pulled his faceplate down and saw the crosshairs in the middle of it line up with the center of the dust cloud. He saw under the crosshairs that the cloud was fifty miles away. He pressed the red button on the thruster handle and an incredibly brilliant beam shot out of the portside blaster and hit the cloud. “I’ve got it. Gabby, I’m sending the results of the scan to your panel.”

Gabby fed the results through her console’s processor and whistled, “If this is right, the beam you just fired matches up closely to the one used by the Builder Warships that pursued Admiral Kuhn.”

“What about range?”

“Admiral, it penetrated more than sixty miles into the dust cloud before it lost its cohesion. That’s a total of a hundred and ten miles.”

Gabe nodded and sat back in his chair, “Poul, are you connected to the firing computer in my console?”

“I can make a connection but normally, it operates autonomously. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t want to distract you from moving the ship if I need to turn the fire control to automatic.”

“Gabe, you do realize that you will be flying the ship and that all I’ll be doing is jumping the ship away if a situation calls for escape. The rest of the time I’ll be feeding everything my scanners see directly to Captain Bartoli’s panel.”

“Call me Gabby.”

“I will when Admiral Eagle does.”

Gabe’s head jerked up, “What do you mean by that?”

“You are in command on this mission and you dictate what protocol we use when communicating with each other.”

Gabby looked at Gabe as he thought about it. After a few moments he said, “While we’re operating alone we will use each other’s first names to address each other. However, once we’re back in Fleet, we’ll follow normal protocols.”

Gabby tilted her head to the side, “Would you mind if I call you Admiral until I get used to using your first name?”

“No, I’m fine with that.” Gabe punched a button on his panel and looked up, “Poul, are you ready to take us through the black hole?”

“There is one thing you might need to think about, Admiral.”

Gabe looked at Gabby with raised eyebrows, “What is that?”

“I remember seeing in the records from the previous scouting mission to the Carand Galaxy that one of their officers has a field that will detect us.”

Gabe smiled and looked up, “Poul, is there a way to avoid that field?”

“We’ll just come out of the black hole, taking a course that’s vertical to the plane of the galaxy. The fields that were detected were not covering that exit course.”

“Take us on that course, Poul. And thank you for reminding me about that field, Gabby.”

“You’re welcome, Sir.”

Gabe sighed and thought;
chalk another thing he missed up to Gabby
. He stared at the black hole and heard Poul announce, “Transiting the black hole in four, three, two, one…” Gabe closed his eyes and felt something inside him wince. He said, “Gabby, you know that you’ll undergo the change once we go back through the black hole.”

“I don’t mind being invisible. Matter of fact, I’m looking forward to it.” Gabe guessed he could understand how she felt. It had to be tough going through life with everyone treating you like you’re ugly. He opened his eyes and saw the black hole’s event horizon in the rear monitor. He looked at his console and saw Poul lining the ship up with a distant light. A moment later, the Carand’s Galaxy disappeared from the rear monitor and the distant light was growing brighter on the forward monitor.

• • •

“Sire.”

The Carand Fleet Royal saw the Lead Scientist on his panel’s display, “Yes, Janek.”

“The new fields we installed above the black hole detected something going through it at an extreme velocity.”

The Royal sat up straight in his command chair, “Is it an invasion?”

“Nooooo…I don’t think so. The mass was too small to be more than one ship. It could have possibly been a small piece of debris shot out from the black hole’s event horizon. We’ve detected several objects over the last month since we installed the field.”

The Royal leaned back in his chair, “Could it have been a ship?”

“Yes, but its course was directly away from the galaxy proper. At the speed it was traveling, I don’t think it would be coming back into our territory.”

“You’ve come a long way with the field, Janek. You initially couldn’t determine the direction objects passing through it were going.”

“We may be forced to give the field to the Royal Family.”

The Royal sat up straight up again, “Why? Is something happening I’m not aware of?”

“The Royal Family is demanding to know what progress we’ve made in coming up with technology to counter the anti-matter vessels. We have to give them something to keep them off our backs.”

“Would giving them the field pose a danger to us?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then give it to them and assign the technicians needed to put the field around the Royal Planet. I’ll let them know that I’m also having it installed around the black hole.”

“That should work. Are you going to tell them if a major invasion comes through the black hole?”

“I don’t know how I can avoid doing that, do you?”

Janek paused and shrugged, “No, I guess not. But you’ll need to get out of there and come here if that happens. I need you to keep your fleet under control if that happens.”

“If you detect an invasion, I’ll come to the hidden asteroid first and then notify the High Royals.”

“Make sure you send that message away from here.”

“I will.” The display went dark and the Royal fell back in his chair. Knowing about the invasion wouldn’t make a difference. The Royal Planet was going to be a primary target. He thought for a moment and wondered if the High Royals had another place to hide other than the asteroid they had given to the Council of Scientists. He decided that he was not going to warn them if an invasion began. As long as they were alive, they could hamper Janek’s escape plans. He had to make sure the only ship that received the field’s reports was his flagship.

• • •

“Gabe.”

“Admiral.”

“Yes, Gabby.”

“I’ve been examining the data Poul collected during the passage from the black hole and it appears the Carand now have that field covering the top of the black hole. We passed through one of the fields as we flew away from the galaxy.” Gabe thought about what that meant and decided there was nothing he could do about it. “Do you think expanding that field has any implications for us on our return?”

“No. It might mean that whomever it was that wants to communicate with us gave the field to whoever is in charge. However, it doesn’t change anything as far as we’re concerned. We’ll be through it and into the black hole before the Carand could react.” Gabe saw the distant light had now taken on the shape of a distant spiral galaxy. “Gabby, how does that galaxy compare to Andromeda?”