The Pyramid Builders (20 page)

“Chris, I should have known this.”

“Jillian, you’re right. However, this is not something easily understood. I have some friends of mine working on the problem.”

“Who?”

“The Members of the Nobel Prize Committee.”

“Why would they help you after what happened?”

“They learned the truth about what happened from that reporter’s article retracting her story. The member’s wife came forward and told them what I did and they respect that I took a hit to protect the Committee’s image. They’re thankful.”

Jillian hung her head, “I believed that story. I was such a thunk. Are they going to award you a Nobel Prize?”

“You’ve been talking to Dolly too much. You could never be a thunk.” Chris smiled, “They are going to announce in three months that I am the winner in Physics.”

Jillian screamed and hugged his neck, “Congratulations! You deserve it!” Then she shook her head, “You’re wrong; I can be a thunk and I was. Thank you for giving me time to see the truth. I believed that story.”

Chris smiled and nodded toward the Cheops, “We need to go see what kind of progress they’re making. You also need to choose.”

“Choose what?”

“One of us will have to fly the ship and the other will be responsible for its defense. One person cannot handle both.”

“You need to fly it. I’ll handle the weapons.”

“Fair enough. Let’s go tell Dr. Leven what we’ve decided so they can start working on our boards. Make sure that both boards can assume control of the other in the event one of us is not at their board. They also need to make one other addition.” Jillian tilted her head and Chris said, “We’ve got to add a self-destruct circuit. We can’t allow the Cheops to be captured by either side of this galactic conflict.” Jillian started shaking her head, “Jillian, you know I’m right.”

Jillian sighed deeply and forced a smile, “I know at some level you’re right. I just can’t get my arms around the possibility of losing you. Lead the way.” She took his hand in hers as they walked toward the now much larger ship.

Hemon watched the new material being placed in a reactor and the cooling container removed. He was troubled that Dolly’s brother made his suggestion going on what he heard without looking directly at the other elements being used. He just didn’t see how this material could possibly work, but as the temperature rose in the reactor the sensors started reporting nuclear fission. Hemon shook his head and then watched as the temperature needle rose past the former peak and continued to rise. Hemon stood up and was thankful this experiment was being done in open space. “Put the rods in now!!”

Four heavy lead rods were inserted in the reactor and the temperature continued to rise. “Add five more!” Finally the temperature slowed its inexorable climb. Hemon looked at the readings with Dolly and shook his head, “That reactor is a hundred times more powerful than the one that was used in the damaged Alliance Ship.”

Dolly had her computer out and was doing quick calculations, “We should use three on each of our ships; one for the force field, one for the weapons, and one for the operation of the ship. We can interlink them so that if we need a more powerful screen, we can bring one of the other reactors on line.”

“We don’t have a lot of time.”

“I know, Hemon, but they won’t be any good to us if they’re destroyed. I’ve also had a request made from Chris.”

“What is that?”

“He wants a beam projector put on top of the Cheops that can be guided by his scanners. He seems to think that he is going to have to hold position and doesn’t want weapons to be unavailable if he is. We’ll make it the popup kind. By the way, where’s Sasha?”

Hemon started laughing, “Planning a wedding. It seems her father is falling all over himself trying to make sure it actually happens. He doesn’t want her to lose this rich suitor.”

Dolly’s expression changed slightly, and she asked in a soft voice, “Have you ever been married before?”

Hemon paused, “I was married when the Sheera landed. She died when their ship flew over my house in the village and hit it with one of their beams as they left. They not only killed my brother but my family as well.”

Dolly took a quick breath, “I didn’t know they did that.”

“I think they wanted to make sure that if I had made any drawings or plans they would be destroyed. My six year old son died with her.”

“You never married again?”

Hemon shook his head, “No, I’ve been concerned that they might return and I never wanted to go through that much pain again. I’m sure they’ll kill anyone close to me if that happens. I’ve warned Sasha but she insists on being with me. I’ve had some women that I’ve lived with, but I never remarried.” He paused and added, “What they did to my family is what made me certain that we could never trust them. I owe them.”

“Why are you going to marry this time?”

“Because I’ve known for more than three years that Sasha loves me. I’ve struggled against letting her get close even though I was greatly attracted to her. But her smile brightens my whole day, and now I want to spend as much time remaining as I can seeing that smile.” Hemon looked at Dolly and said, “How is it possible that your brother broke the code on that new material? I have trouble understanding what happened.”

“George is much smarter than I am, Hemon. His intellect is staggering, and early in his life his personality was absorbed by it. His brilliance is so far ahead of everyone else that no one can match his mental capacity. He probably saw the elements needed to make it work as soon as he glanced at it.”

“That’s just it, Dolly, he didn’t look at the paper you were holding with the elements on it.”

“He didn’t need to. I told him about the elements and he knew that we had a reactor working using the process, so he knew which ones we had to have to make that happen. To him, it was obvious.”

“Why was it dangerous for you to go see him?”

“I almost lost myself the last time I went to see him. I can feel his mind. It’s like a living thing that calls out to me, and I find it almost impossible to resist that call. I nearly lost myself in my own intellect. Thank God my mother was there with a bucket of ice water. I’ve got to tell ya, that ice water will get your attention.

Did you try it with George?”

“It stopped four feet from him. We can’t get anything close to him that would distract him. I sensed how powerful that call of his intellect is.”

“What about this time?”

“Jeff was there, and I felt his love more than my Brother’s mind.” Dolly got a faraway look in her eyes, and said, “I almost think he could stop that asteroid with his intellect, but he wouldn’t be interested enough with what happens in the real world to do it. His body moves around in the real world, but the intellect that directs it is only interested in what’s happening in the inside world of his mind. It only does enough to keep his body and the kangaroos alive.”

Hemon lowered his head, “I’m sorry, Dolly. I wish there was something that could be done to help him.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure he lives a very full existence in his mind. I was wondering if you and Sasha might want to leave with one of the colony ships.”

“Colony Ships?”

“We are going to send eight of them out into our galaxy looking for a new planet to live on. We’re following your original advice; we want to make sure our species survives.”

“Let me think about that. How long before I have to give you an answer?”

“Anytime up until the moment they leave, which should be within a few months from now.”

“I’ll discuss it with Sasha. What are you and Jeff going to do?”

“We intend to take one of our new warships and go teach the Moet not to trespass. Then, for good measure, we’re going to go find the Sheera and let them know we don’t appreciate their interference.”

“Do you think you stand a chance against them? Our warships are very small ships compared to theirs.”

“Consider this; what if one of the new reactors provides all its power to screen a small ship instead of a large one? Our best estimate is that it will be in an entirely different class of vessel in terms of its weapons and force fields. You know the power goes up squared with the distance reduced in coverage? Our small attack ships will have a separate reactor for weapons as well. We won’t know how effective they’ll be against them until we try. However, I owe them for their callous disregard of life; particularly life on Earth. They’re trying to kill George and my Mum. They’ve made it personal.”

“I think I know how to keep them away from our solar system.”

Dolly sat up straighter, “Oh?”

“I remember seeing in the Sheera databanks that if a high energy discharge happens in the green space used by stardrives, it will disrupt that space so that stardrives won’t work.”

“Forever?”

“No, for about two years. Then another discharge will once again prevent travel.”

“For what distance from our system?”

“That I’m not sure, however, I’m almost certain that it’s less than a light year. I suspect it will only be effective inside the planetary system. Their gravity is what causes the disruption.”

“Why doesn’t the Alliance use this to save themselves?”

“I suspect they don’t want to lose the ability to remain in contact with the rest of their members. I also see that for some reason they don’t use gravity to increase their speed. The top speed of that ship Chris and Jillian brought back is only one third of light speed. It would take them more than twelve hours to fly to Earth from Neptune’s orbit. We can get there in a little over four hours.”

“What if you’re wrong about the distance of the disruption?”

“Then I’m wrong. But…..if I’m right, you can go attack that incoming asteroid and they can’t get a ship into our system to defend it.”

Dolly started smiling, “Then it will be a fight done in normal space, and we’ll see them coming.” Dolly stood up and turned a circle, “This is great. Since we’re building small ships, we should have more than a hundred completed within six months, and the number will be increasing from that point on.” She looked at Hemon with a huge grin, “We’ll do the discharge as soon and Chris and Jillian jump away and after we eliminate the Moet scanner.”

“Do you know where the Moet scanner is located?”

“Oh yes. It’s where the asteroid began its journey toward us.”

“That makes sense.”

“Hemon, I knew you would make a difference in our chances of success.” Hemon shrugged. “You and Sasha can have a warship if you want one.”

“We might just take you up on that offer. I need to see how she feels about it.”

“Did you tell her about your first wife and son?”

“Uhhh, yes. Why do you ask?”

“She’ll want to make them pay for what they did to you. She’ll opt for the warship.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’ll bet you a dinner at the place of the winner’s choice!”

“You’re on!”

“You’re too easy, Hemon. I’ll take it easy on you.”

“I’ll just persuade her not to choose the destroyer.”

“Now you’ve lost my good will. I’ll make you pay, now.”

“We’ll see.”

Dolly left smiling and singing, “To play the jukebox…oooooh, my meal that night will be a huge delight….”

L
’grae looked over at his sensor officer, “Anything on the board?”

“Not yet. They may now be reluctant to follow any of our trails.”

L’grae nodded, “I can’t say I blame them, since they’ve lost two hundred ships. I suspect they know by now that even if they chase us with a fleet they will lose their ships as soon as they enter normal space. A hundred ships firing high energy beams continuously as they enter is more than they can handle. They can still only enter the location one at a time.”

“The fleet is waiting with charged weapons, but nothing has shown up on the scanners yet.”

“They’ll come.” The Sensor Officer looked skeptically at him. “They can’t tolerate someone challenging their superiority. Oh; they’ll come.”

L’grae’s ship was three hundred thousand miles from the ships waiting in ambush. Tenah had forbidden him to take part in an attack. Seems he thinks I’m too valuable. L’grae snorted at the idea, but followed orders and kept his ship at a safe distance from the point of emergence. The Sensor Officer said, “Something’s coming through.”

“What do you mean, ‘something’?”

“This drive signature is huge, Sir.”

L’grae looked at his board and saw a ship emerge into normal space that stunned him. It was gigantic. “What is that?”

“I don’t know, Sir. I’ve never seen that class of Moet Ship before.”

The giant grey ship was easily a hundred miles long and sixty miles thick. It has a huge tower in the center that rose more than thirty miles above the body of the ship. It was covered in beam projectors and missile launchers. All hundred Alliance ships were firing nonstop, but nothing was getting through the ship’s force fields. L’grae stood and yelled, “Get them out of there… now!” His Communications Office hit his board, but they had waited too long.

The Moet Dreadnaught Master watched his display as the small ships fired their beams at his force field. He was almost reclining in his command chair. He glanced at his weapons console, “Do you have them targeted?”

“We’ve had them targeted from the moment we cleared no-space. You told us to wait and see if they could penetrate our defenses.”

“It appears they are unable to do that?”

“Their beams are quite strong, but are below the threshold necessary to penetrate.”

The Master was angry that he had been forced to leave the Dynasty’s home system to come deal with this nuisance. He was going to miss several social events. The Dreadnaughts had never before been used to defend the Supreme Master’s Dynasty. He lowered two eyestalks and thought about how enemies always seemed to get stronger and stronger. He looked at his display panel and saw the silver ships continuing to fire their weapons. He casually waved an arm as he took a drink from a goblet and said, “Eliminate them.”

L’grae watched as the behemoth opened fire on his fleet. The speed of the fleet’s destruction was staggering as silver ships began exploding on all sides of the Moet. Missiles homed in and beams struck ships causing huge explosions. Of the hundred attacking ships, only seven managed to make it into stardrive. “Hold our position.” His bridge crew looked at him like he was crazy. “Those ships that escaped need time to hide. If we jump, that monster will be right on their tails. We’ve got to buy them time.”