The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #1, Inception (30 page)

Cat's plan was to integrate the best each race had to offer to save first the D'lralu and then Humanity. The D'lralu's home world had been destroyed several generations ago. As a result, most of their population resided on terraformed moons which orbited gas giants within their solar system. The humans would rapidly create a swarm of hyper field satellites powered by the D'lralu generators. Their fields would be linked, and, utilizing a combination of the Hupenstanii cloaking and human drive technologies, the moons would be jumped hundreds of light years to equivalent orbits around an appropriate gas giant in the Hupenstanii star system.

The whole transition, including active real-time gravimetric compensation, would be overseen by the Heshe AIs utilized by the humans. All non-Hupenstanii radio traffic was suspended, as these types of signals could eventually give away the hiding location of the D'lralu and Hupenstanii allies.

"I wonder how much time we have?" Cat muttered.

Ken looked up from a schematic display he and Trifa were going over. "What?"

"Nothing... Just wondering why the Uruk didn't wipe out the D'lralu the moment the battle for Earth ended?"

"Maybe they don't know yet." Ken offered.

"Doesn't seem possible." Cat said. "I would be hard pressed to believe they don't have some type of mechanism in place to monitor activity in their enslaved systems"

"Oh, they know what happened." Ben said. "When we defeated the Hoppers, it was about two weeks before we received a message, on every conceivable frequency, to place monitoring ships at very specific locations in Hopper controlled space. Seconds after the last of our ships arrived, we watched them shroud each inhabited moon or world in a shimmering nimbus, and within moments each one had its orbit collapsed. The people on those bodies knew what was happening... The screams over the radio beacons tore at our souls. Several of our ships attempted to intervene, but even with full shields they were incinerated in a fraction of a second."

"So why the delay?" Cat asked.

"No one knows Commodore." Trifa responded. "It was the same when we defeated the Grula Ben Hosen. We defeated the enemy that attacked us and we thought the fighting was over. But within a few weeks we too were contacted, and we too saw complete and utter destruction of their entire race... And the saddest part was, the Grula Ben Hosen were no longer capable of being a threat to anyone. They were a hive mind, and once their queen had been killed there was no longer an integrator for their intelligence. They became little more than instinctual insects. They probably didn't even understand they were being destroyed."

"So if history repeats itself we should expect a message in another four or five days. We need to be ready, to do whatever we are going to do, in three days on the outside. How close are we?" Cat asked while peaking over the diagrams the others were reviewing.

Ken scratched his head. He was about to speak when his wife, Rebecca walked into the Yorktown’s engineering conference room, where they were brainstorming - carrying a tray of sandwiches, pork chops and chocolates.

Ben immediately stopped what he was doing and reached three arms out to grab the plate from her hands and simultaneously munch on a chocolate covered caramel turtle, while setting the tray down on the table for the others. "Lady Rebecca..." he said while chewing, "were you not already in a cub-pack relationship, I would make you my wife... Even short a few paws like you are."

Rebecca curtsied with a smile and left the room as silently as she had entered, after receiving a nod of thanks from Cat.

"Hey bub... That's my 'cub-pack' thingy you're talking about!" Ken said, while grabbing a Rubin on Rye.

"I believe Commander Kirkland was about to answer the Commodore when this very welcome repast was brought in." Trifa said, while enjoying a five-spice encrusted pork chop. The Hupenstanii were unable to process vegetable matter and used plants for seasoning only. Despite their appearance, the Hoppers were complete carnivores... Albeit very polite ones.

"As I started to say," Ken continued, "we have the core integration done. The problem is what we don't know. Normally we would be testing these systems for months, if not years. I know how our systems work under a load, but I have no idea what to expect from the Hupenstanii systems, or even the D'lralu components. In our hyper field cloak satellite array, the nanite replication systems can repair or replace any component that fails, even in the event of a catastrophic failure... But once we start integrating these systems into ships, where there are people's lives at stake, it becomes a whole new can of worms."

"So tell me what you need?" Cat said.

"What I need Commodore is time to learn these systems so we can tweak them on the fly to keep them from blowing us up."

Cat nodded at Trifa. "Does she know her systems?"

"Absolutely!"

"Seems to me that's your solution. If we are indeed forming a Galactic Coalition, then perhaps we should integrate our crews."

"I like the idea." Ben said, while tweaking the routing of a superconducting conduit to avoid a plasma manifold.

"You just want to be nearer your supply of chocolate" Cat said while smirking.

"That too." He admitted.

Just then the door swished open and Thais, who was overseeing the integration of the new technologies in the Yorktown, stepped in. "Ohhh sandwiches." she said, when she spotted the platter. "And chocolate!"

"Mine!" Ben said with a low guttural growl.

***

Despite their best efforts it took the better part of four days to complete their preparations. Without Cal's help in developing compatible interfaces across the different technologies the job would have been impossible. Three days into the exercise the nano-satellite cloaking and transportation systems were jumped into their precise geosynchronous orbits around each inhabited moon in the D'lralu system. Two hours later, after a complete systems check, the satellites powered up. The fields were integrated as a defense shield was put in place.

The shield utilized a rotating hyper field harmonic that made disrupting it difficult. The power systems behind the shielding were impressive. The human engineering teams were able to take the core D'lralu antimatter technology and coax an additional sixty three percent out of them. Add to this the greater cohesiveness of the human hyper field technologies, and the shields protecting the D'lralu moons were virtually impenetrable by any technology the GCP could produce, including an SJ round. That said, Cat was under no illusions. These shields would be no match for the Uruk weapon systems.  Even with efficiencies now approaching seven sigma, the bleed through from a controlled galactic core beam weapon would decimate these shields in minutes if not seconds.

The Uruk monitoring AI assigned to this system noted the erection of the new shields but it was not concerned. The shields in question, while impressive, would ultimately offer little protection should the eradication order be confirmed.

The Chief Engineer on the newly recommissioned GCP Yorktown was also busy at work. The built-in nanite fabrication facility was put to good use, rerouting conduits and rebuilding power generation systems, as well as reconfiguring hyper field emitters to utilize the best of breed technologies from each of the member races in the nascent Galactic Coalition of Planets.

At the end of day four the Yorktown was ready. Her skin was now a flowing liquid mass of cooperating nanites, which could regenerate a fully functional hyper field emitter in seconds. The ships AI, Cal, was instructed to rotate the ship automatically in the event of an attack to allow emitters on the ship to constantly regenerate. Her beam weapons were many times more powerful than anything the humans had produced before.

In addition, the Yorktown had a new set of tricks up her sleeve. If she needed to fight she could generate a directional hyper field breach to the Galactic core, that essentially gave her an SJ class beam weapon.

Her shielding could be set to reflect a beam weapon 180 degrees with near perfect fidelity. Finally, her shields could be precision tuned, using Hupenstanii tech, to make the Yorktown essentially disappear. Normal hyper field detection techniques were of no use, because the Hupenstanii ingeniously utilized hyper dimensional cancellation fields which effectively canceled the cross hyper field interactions past a fractional AU.

***

Commodore Cat Kimbridge sat in her command chair aboard the GCP Starship Yorktown. Little had changed on the bridge, other than two custom acceleration couches near the engineering stations for the newly commissioned Hupenstanii and D'lralu officers. Lieutenant Commanders Trifa and Ben were systems specialists, whose sole job it was to keep the powerful new ship from tearing itself apart.

Her First Officer and friend stood behind her with his hand on her chair. He had his own station but he seemed to enjoy the view from the center of the bridge when they were getting underway.

"Ken, can I appeal to the chaplain in you for a blessing and a prayer?"

"Absolutely, Commodore"

"One second, Ken... Ziggy... Open this up ship wide... Everyone can benefit from a prayer."

Ken bowed his head for a moment and then said in a firm voice. "May God bless the GCP Yorktown and all who sail in her. May they sail in peace and harmony in the seas of far and near, above and beyond, on God's seas. May her crew always seek to do what is right in your eyes and may they be a blessing to all who encounter them... Amen."

"Thank you, Father Kirkland. Ziggy, I'd like a plaque with those words and the names of the entire crew complement produced and placed on the wall as you enter the Bridge. See to it please."

"Yes Ma'am. It will be up before the beginning of my next shift."

"Open a channel to Lunar One."

"Channel open."

"Lunar One, this is the Yorktown. We're ready to head out. Any parting advice?"

"Cat, this is Admiral Faragon. Keep your head down. I want that shiny new ship of yours back."

"Your concern is heartwarming, Sir. I'll bring your ship and your favorite chef back home just as soon as we move a couple of moons and send a message."

"God speed, Cat. The world is praying for you. Do what you do best... Succeed. Faragon out."

"Ken, take us out." Cat said.

"Yes, Ma'am," Ken said with a board smile. "Helm, lock in jump coordinates for the D'lralu system. Bring us in fully cloaked."

"Aye commander."

Cat swiveled her chair to face the weapons console. "Chief Wroblewski, I want simultaneous firing solutions on all designated targets as soon as we jump into the system. Beam weapons full intensity."

"Already on it ma'am. I have a preliminary lock in place, I'll update it the instance we have a confirmed position in system."

Ken accessed the ship wide intercom. “All hands prepare for jump. Helm, jump us on three."

"Roger that, Sir. Jumping on three, two, one... Jump!"

The Yorktown remained cloaked four light seconds from the major D'lralu population centers for the better part of two days. Cat was doing laps around the exercise track with Ben, her favorite running partner. Although he had a cybernetic body, his systems were programmed to send simulated responses to his organic brain which replicated both the fatigue and hormone rush associated with a workout.

For Cat, the run was not so much exercise, her nanite systems kept her in peak physical form, the run was more about the rhythm and settling her mind to think about the day ahead and how to best attack the challenges. The Yorktown was playing a waiting game -- waiting for the Uruk to make their move. If history was any indication, the "Masters" would be contacting the humans any day now to announce the impending destruction of the D'lralu.