Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer (16 page)

“Doing very well. Cindy will be released for duty in about three weeks, and the babies are growing like crazy and healthy as oxen,” Ian replied. “What have you got for us today?”

“Alpha flight test for a Shadow Fighter, I’m still having issues with the power systems on the Wasp. I may have to see if I can adapt a shadow fighter engine for it,” Brittany explained.

“They got a Shadow finished already? I thought that was still a couple of weeks out?” Ian asked.

“Originally it would have been, but we all focused on it once we learned of the Super Nova. Really, once the power systems issues were solved, it all became a simple issue of programming and fitting it all together into a workable design, Kyle and Tara are can be really scary sometimes. It was like they linked brains to get this finished so quickly,” Brittany explained. “Even Stephanie’s thought assisted flight controls are installed. Tinker has spent the last three days studying hard to learn the systems so she could fly this.”

“Tinker’s flying again?” Ian asked.

John answered this time. “She’s the best test pilot we have, Ian. Especially for Alpha tests. She is also training others, but she will most likely always be the best.”

Ian nodded agreement, “I would imagine so; she certainly has an impressive resume that would be hard to beat.

John nodded agreement. “At this point I think she might the best person to do the testing. I do know she handed off the Wasp testing to another pilot; one of her more promising trainees.”

Ian nodded and toggled the comm at one of the stations. “Good morning, Tinker, how are you today?”

“Pretty good boss, I’m looking forward to seeing what this bird is capable of. The design specs are impressive as hell. I do have to admit, having the fighter tuned to me was a trip,” Tinker said. “Hell, the power systems alone are completely innovative – we have nothing like them anywhere else.”

“I don’t remember reading about that, I’ll have Dr. Benson brief me while you finish getting ready to impress the hell out of us again,” Ian replied.

He heard her chuckle. “If ejecting out of a test bed impresses you, I have a whole bag of tricks you haven’t seen yet!” Tinker replied.

Ian grinned and turned back to Jon and Brittany. “So, Doc, what’s so special about the power systems?”

“Well, in light of the issues we had with the Wasp prototype power systems, Kyle and I acted on a suggestion made by Alma Punjab. The Shadow has a completely new, cool plasma power system utilizing zero-point energy modules. The power system acts in a form of synchronicity with the armor and should make the power issues much easier to contain and control,” Brittany explained.

“What systems did you have to sacrifice in order to use this system? From what little bit I know of Zero Point energy Module (ZPM), it doesn’t generate that much power,” John asked.

“That’s the beauty of this system. We didn’t have to lose anything! With the armor and the ZPM working in unison, there’s plenty of power, even for the jump engine. There is no need for a plasma cooling unit that the hornet and the wasp employ to cool the plasma because it’s already cool when it exits the vector ports!” Brittany said.

“Amazing, I’m actually looking forward to seeing how this thing works,” Ian said, grinning at her enthusiasm.

“Star Dancer Flight Control, this is Shadow X-One-Beta, we are ready to begin,” Tinker replied.

John nodded to the primary flight controller, and he activated his comm. “Attention all units. Test flight protocol is now active. Launch escort and recovery teams. Ballista Flight, pick-up Shadow X-One-Beta at the moon base launch. Report when on station.”

“Understood, Control. Ballista flight is outta here!” a male voice replied as one of the launch tubes down on the floor suddenly changed from yellow to red, indicating a launch in progress. Further forward in the landing bay, a craft that looked like a small shuttle lifted off the floor, and moved quickly toward the curtain covering the landing bay exit into space.

“ESAR Two-One launching. I hope you won’t need us today. Good luck, Tinker.” The female voice of the ESAR pilot was heard.

“I appreciate that, ESAR. It’s good to know you’ve got my back. Just so you know, a spacewalk is not a scheduled part of today’s test,” Tinker replied.

“Ballista flight on station. Ready to begin.” The flight leader called.

“Stand by, Bruno,” The flight controller replied.

“SAR team is in position. We’re ready here too, Control.”

“Thank you, Shadow X-One-Beta, you may launch when ready,” the controller said.

“Pre-flight checklist is complete. All monitors are active and running. SX-One-Beta is launching,” Tinker said over the comm.

On the main screen in the flight control section, Ian and company watched the sleek shiny craft rocket out of the large assembly hanger, and gain altitude relative to the moon.

“What a rush!” Tinker reported. “This little girl is very agile, however, during launch, the turbines make her want increase pitch. That could be an issue when launching from a ship.” There was a moment or two pause. “The thought guided system is awesome, I could almost let go of the controls and fly without them. However, I have noticed that the system seems a little too sensitive. If I think about turning, but don’t actually decide to, the ship starts to make the turn anyway.”

“Is the thought system making it too difficult to fly? We can disable it remotely for the duration of the test if required,” Stephanie’s voice was heard over the comm.

“That might be a good idea, base. This ship is all sorts of fancy without adding that to the mix. Let’s get the normal flights systems checked off, then work on the new one,” Tinker replied.

“Okay, Tinker, stand-by, I’m disabling the flight assist system, you might get dizzy for just a moment,” Stephanie replied.

“I’m straight and level, go ahead, base,” Tinker replied.

“Disabling... now!”

“Whoa! That was weird. Okay, Ballista flight, are you with me?” Tinker asked.

“We got ya Tinkerbelle! One klick back and one klick separation,” Bruno replied.

“Control, Request we go to the weapons test portion of our schedule? I think someone needs a lesson in protocol,” Tinker replied.

“I’m tempted to let you, Tinker,” Ian said. “But we need the fighter. I’ll let you slap the shit out of him after you land.”

“Roger control, I think that would be more satisfying anyway. Proceeding with phase one, acceleration and flight profile assessments. Engaging full burn in three, two, one!” Tinker said. On the screen, the now ‘invisible’ fighter lurched as the camera tracking her tried to stay on target.

“Holy shit! Control, we are at full afterburner and we’re falling behind,” Bruno reported. “That thing really gets moving.”

“Throttling back at point eight-nine C. She’s starting to shake pretty good, I’d say I was pushing phase lock. Armor still green, reserve power nominal. Reducing speed to point seven.” Tinker said.

“Affirmative, SX-One, the computer agrees with phase lock loss. Setting maximum limit to point eight-five of C,” Kyle said from the moon base.

“Agreed base. As soon as my chasers catch up, we’ll proceed with the maneuvering tests,” Tinker said, jokingly.

All in all the tests went very well. They didn’t test the jump engine or the thought guided flight systems, but the rest of the craft performed far above expectations. The Shadow fighter was going to be an awesome addition to their arsenal. Once they got the thought assisted system working correctly, the fighter would be nearly unstoppable.

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W
hen Ian arrived back at his office he found he’d received many new updates from the departments that were directly involved in getting ready for the arrival of the enemy super ship. He was half way through reading an update from Talos when Jenny brought the ship to yellow alert.

Running out onto the bridge, Ian came up beside Jenny. “What’s up?”

“Sir, hyperspace sensors are tracking an inbound target. From the look of it, it’s the Super Nova,” Jenny replied as she got out of the chair, and stepped over to her normal station.

Ian sat down. “Show me the plot please, XO.” He asked.

On the big main screen a three-dimensional looking image appeared showing their spiral arm of the galaxy and a light trace appearing at the very edge of the screen. The Sol system was at the far edge denoted as a small pulsing blue spark. A light, dotted line connected the light speck with the blue spark.

“Is this confirmed?” Ian asked.

“We are awaiting confirmation from the tracking station on the moon, but there is a high probability it will arrive here. We can confirm that the trace is real, just not its destination yet,” Star reported. “There is the possibility of error because the hyperspace sensor system is untested, but that probability is low.”

“All stations report ready for action, Sir. Elapsed time, two point six minutes,” Jenny added.

“That’s a little slow for my liking, Colonel, please see what you can do about it,” Ian said sounding distracted. “In the meantime, stand us down to orange alert.” He touched a control on his console. “Operations, what can we do for you, Sir?” Major Brighton’s voice replied.

“It looks like you now have a deadline, Chloe,” Ian said. Major Brighton and her department had been acting as liaison and coordinating between all departments in order to help them all get ready in time. “Have you gotten the report on the Shadow fighter flight tests yet?”

“Not in the last five minutes, Sir. How did it go?” she asked.

“Really well. The thought assisted flight system is currently off-line, but the fighter itself was amazing. I’m about to call the Moon Base and order as many of them as they can crank out. Is there a time line for refitting the ship to carry them?”

“Yes Sir, but considering this new development, I doubt you’re going to want to proceed. It would take longer than it seems we will have. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel comfortable having the landing bays torn apart during combat,” Chloe replied.

“No, that wouldn’t be my choice either. Then it looks like we’re going to have the shadows based off the moon for now. Will Talos be able to handle any?” Ian asked.

“I’d rather doubt it, Sir, the stealth systems haven’t been tested down there, and there would be no way to discharge the armor safely, unless they figured out a way to handle that as well?” Chloe asked.

“Not that I’m aware of. Look, why don’t you go tackle your reports, and I’ll go tackle mine, and we’ll have a staff meeting in the big conference room at fifteen hundred hours. That way we can talk it over and hammer out any last minute details that need to be dealt with,” Ian said.

“We can be ready by then, Sir,” Chloe replied.

“Okay, pass the word, will you? I’ll see you then.”

“Very good, Sir, I’ll handle the arrangements,” Chloe replied. “Until then, Sir.”

Ian broke the connection and sighed. He had wanted to have more time before that big bastard arrived, but then again, no amount of time would be enough to prepare for this.

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F
alls Church, Virginia

North American Continent

Earth (Sol III) Sol Sector.

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A
lan Carlson was very happy he had listened to his friend and started working for Ian and the people at Talos. However, he was beginning to wonder just who the people were he was investigating.

His contacts in the intelligence community knew very little or nothing about what he had been tracing, and those that did warned him away. The group he was investigating was a closed society inside of the tightknit intelligence community. Alan was certain that not even the Secretary of the NSA knew anything about this group. He was starting to wonder if anyone did.

The little bit of information that Ty had given him from the fake agents turned out to be an address in Arlington, Virginia. The building was obviously a high security installation of the type used by many different departments inside the intelligence community, except no one seemed to know which department it actually belonged to. Anti-Terrorism thought it belonged to Surveillance, Surveillance thought it belonged to Over-Seas Operations, who thought it belong to someone else and on down the line.

Ironically, or maybe he should have seen it coming, but from his investigations, all clues led back to this building. The attacks at Talos, the missing oil, as well as a few other things Alan had stumbled across while following leads. He had no proof, but he was now convinced that the Caldarians were not only here, but had been here for some time. That meant that they had to have a base somewhere, but he knew it couldn’t be the building he was looking at, since Caldarians looked radically different than humans.

Alan knew many of the answers he sought were in that building, but getting in there was going to take some doing. If he knew what department it belonged to, he could easily forge credentials for himself, as it was, he was going to have to resort to the age-old cleaning service routine.

It wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Since the terrorist attacks of the earlier twenty-first century, the agency had tightened up their security quite a bit. One of those ways was to contract with a single cleaning service for all their buildings, and those people were screened thoroughly before they were hired. A DNA scan is performed on everyone that entered a high-security building now, and while he could get his own profile into the mix, it would take time to do so. With Star’s help, however, it shouldn’t take that long at all.

He pressed the button on his communicator, but, instead of asking for Ty like he normally did, he said. “Major Star Dancer please.”

“What can I do for you today, Agent Carlson?” Star answered.

“If I could, I would like to ask for your assistance in something. I need to gain entrance to a certain high security building, I need you to do some hacking for me, if you have the time,” Alan replied.

“That building you found from the clue that Major Anders gave you?” Star asked.

“Yes Ma’am. There are too many things pointing to this place. I need to get in there and look around,” Alan explained.