AL:ICE-9 (4 page)

“The NeHaw now know we have weaponry they can’t yet defend against, so they sent the biggest thing in their fleet. We could have shot at that thing all day long and not stopped it without the RF bombs. So now, we know why they sent the battleship, but that begged another question. Why not send armored ships. I mean the cruisers hull can withstand a typical conventional 30 mm hit, but not the hypervelocity depleted uranium armor piercing rounds that Jake had in the rail guns. To defend against these would require significantly thickened hardened steel alloy plating.”

“Again we were informed by our Treaty partners, faster than light won’t work with a ferrous metal hull. Turns out that if your ship is made of steel, the FTL field generators, those round cylinders on the outer edge of the cruisers, can’t create the necessary field to make it work. That’s why all the races the NeHaw consider modern, use energy weapons. Anything requiring ferrous metal prevents you from leaving your solar system.”

“OH,” Patti exclaimed as if just remembering something “the stasis fields we use as shields, the NeHaw have nothing like them because we invented them here on Earth. Turns out, they are a derivative of the containment fields used in the exploration ship power generators. The passive nuclear reduction converters every ALICE facility uses as its main power source, works by placing a highly unstable radioactive core inside a containment field. As the material decays, it’s absorbed in the containment field and converted into oscillating electromagnetic energy. This energy in turn, is converted into electrical power. The more unstable the radioactive material is the better the power generation. Our scientists figured out that the reason this works is the containment field actually creates the stasis effect, greatly reducing the rate of decay. This in turn provides a self-sustaining power source that lasts for as long as the core.

For example
, U234 naturally has a half-life of 245,500 years. Contained in stasis it would last almost forever. The stasis field doesn’t stop time, it just slows it way down. We altered the field generation systems and
Voila
, Stasis Field!”

To Jake, that explained ALICE-1s
laissez
faire
attitude way back when, when he had asked her about a failing power source. It was also the best news he had heard so far. The realization that we didn’t know where the NeHaw lived, we can’t take the rail-guns outside the solar system, and none of the ships they were building in Hawaii would ever be capable of travel faster than light was not encouraging. The one positive piece was, if the NeHaw didn’t know why the first ship crashed, their status, as a “death planet” was still intact.

----*----

HeBak sat at the
Communications
Supervisor station he had operated for a very long time. Having reached the pinnacle of his career here, he had seen others come and go as they received promotions he was never destine to receive. Most of those promotions were
due to
family ties or treachery and guile. In a few cases, he was just happy to have survived their passing through his department.

He had been witness to every report from every sector in NeHaw space, processing each as required and forwarding them to the appropriate departments. That is every report but the ones from a newly discovered little planet in Nu Tau Beta. He alone knew the real story surrounding the loss of the exploration vessel, crashed so many megacycles ago.

His receipt of that first report, like so many others, was uneventful. He was preparing to process it as required when the geology data came up on his display. The world was a treasure trove of precious metals, not seen in NeHaw space in a very long time. They had drained so many of the occupied planets of resources, so long ago, as required by NeHaw expansion. It was only the remote location of this planet, which had left the world undiscovered for so long. He stripped the geology data from the analysis and buried the crash report in the archives as “lost in space”. His intent in altering the information was to return in his retirement and quietly siphon the undiscovered metals from under the inhabitant’s noses.

Unfortunately, an automated long-range scanner, searching for the lost exploration ship, detected NeHaw technology on a planet not known to contain such. HeBak again altered the report content. He couldn’t actually delete the alert as they went straight to High Council, but he altered the associated report to his favor. HeBak needed this planet to stay off the Council radar, so he stated the planet was developing black market NeHaw technology. The planet was unevolved and was off limits
due to
an inhospitable environment. This stipulated there were to be no landings, and vaporization of the planet was forbidden. There were to be no actions that compromise the planetary value as a communications relay location or unskilled labor resource in the distant future.

As such, action in the shape of a single cruiser, instructed not to engage the population, investigate the situation and if challenged, just to bomb the Technology out of existence. With the cruiser sent by the Council in faster than light, HeBak secretly sent a message directly to the planet. The message demanded the destruction of all NeHaw Technology and the return of the ship and crew. HeBak knew that with the inhabitants stirred up
prior to
their arrival, the ship’s captain would defend his ship and launch
immediately
, destroying a large part of the population and keeping his secret intact.

This would mean no future worries of High Council investigations and HeBak would not need to sneak in when he was ready to retire. The surviving population would be devoid of any technology that might detect his presence. All his problems solved.

However
, this well-developed plan had completely disintegrated in the last series of reports. HeBak was not aware the cruiser captain had seeded the space around the planet with sensors after the bombing and left a Communications Unit on the fourth planet. While reports were completely under his control, alerts as before went directly to High Council.

As with the first report, he altered the single cruiser engagement, making it appear a faulty bridge panel failed, evacuating the ship atmosphere and killing all aboard. In the second engagement, he had to be more creative, implying the NeHaw commander had gone rouge with the year’s tribute collection in the abandoned single cruisers hold. Attacking his own sector companions, he had rebelled, possibly convincing some to join him. All these events were not unfamiliar to the NeHaw,
as
HeBak had seen similar actions in reports of the past. The High Council tried to keep them quiet, but he was well aware of all the dirty laundry the Empire had to hide.

He had hoped to buy time and delay any
further
High Council involvement, but in a surprise move, they
immediately
dispatched the newly deployed, yet unassigned, battleship to the sector. This was a bad timing issue for HeBak, as he had expected a several cycle delay. The expected behavior he had counted on was for the NeHaw to restructure the adjoining sectors to gather a sufficient force to deploy against the rogue commander. He had assumed the overwhelming force would destroy the upstarts and save his retirement.

HeBak was disturbed beyond reason, as his retirement was in jeopardy. He had taken all his savings, a not inconsequential sum, and purchased a ship with all the automated mining equipment necessary to land and claim his prize. He had to figure out a way to subdue the usurping inhabitants and get the NeHaw High Council looking the other way again.

What was even more disturbing to him were the rumors he was hearing of the other five species in Nu Tau Beta. Apparently, they were telling tales of the defeats in the three confrontations. Evidently, there were disturbances in other sectors based on these stories. If the truth got out and discovery of his altered reports became known, the leadership would execute him on the spot. The only bright side was the other uprisings might give him much needed time to address Nu Tau Beta himself.

Chapter 4

After Patti’s presentation was completed, and with all questions asked and answered as best as they could be, Jake, Sara, Patti, Linda, and Sandy all retired to Jake’s room. It was larger than most of theirs, but they really chose it more for Jake’s comfort as they could have gone anywhere. On the way to his room, they all gave Patti a bit of grief over her overly dramatic oration.

“Really Patti,” Jake started, “it was great, but I was expecting more visuals and……”

“Less you!” Sara completed with a laugh.

Patti and Sara were very close. When Patti discovered her genetic relationship to Jake, Sara was the first person she confided in, besides her brother. Sara had guided her on how to approach Jake and the two became friends. That bond had grown stronger since.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Jake inserted before Patti could reply.

“Oh yes it was,” Sandy contributed.

“Look you guys,” Patti countered, “there really wasn’t a lot I could do for visuals, have any of you ever seen a video of a power containment field?”

As they reached the door to Jake’s quarters, he asked, “OK, Patti, answer me this, do you even know what MPLS stands for?”

Patti stopped dead in her tracks, the distinct look of panic on her face.

“I thought not,” Jake said, answering his own question. With a laugh, he opened the door and guided her in while motioning for the others to follow, all joining in the laughter.

Once everyone had grabbed their beverages of choice, that being wine for everyone but Jake, they all settled into seats in his sitting room. Jake was the first, grabbing one of the overstuffed chairs, as Sara had pointed him to it while handing him a soft drink, and saying, “no alcohol with the pain pills.” He was not a big drinker anyway, so there was no loss there.

While all the other maneuvering was going on, Jake noted Sandy was wearing the same dress she had the first night she first came to him about the rotation. She looked every bit as good in it now as she had then.

With all the craziness of baby arrivals, the before and after of the battleship fight, the departure of the five Treaty ships and the recent incident in ALICE-4, any rotation activity had been all but halted over the last two months. Oh, he got the occasional whining of neglect from Becky, but the rest of the women had not uttered a peep. He wasn’t quite sure if he should feel insulted or flattered as that meant they either respected his space and need for focus or had found other entertainment.

At that last thought, he actually laughed aloud. He was absolutely the last person on earth who could fault any of these women for finding another man. If anything, the fact that he was the father of their children had most likely condemned them to his exclusive company for the rest of their lives. If any of them should be so lucky as to find love, he would gladly dance at their wedding! Well, anyone but Sara that is.

The laugh, however, had drawn the attention of the others.

“What’s so funny?” Sandy asked as she settled in at the end of the couch next to Jake’s chair, tucking her bare legs under her, the movement expanding the gap exposing even more cleavage.

Recovering quickly, Jake replied, “I just had a vision of two naked girls, both sprawled out on my bed in the next room.”

As the others laughed and Sandy turned bright red, Patti blurted, “Multi-Protocol Label Switching!”

“What?” Linda asked, confused.

“MPLS” Jake offered with a bigger laugh while Patti nodded.

For the next 30 minutes they all talked about anything but work, Linda glowing when Sara asked about the baby and then updating Jake on his daughter’s latest developments.

It was during a pause in the conversation, when Jake turned to Patti and asked, “So what don’t you want to tell me?”

“How did you know?” Patti asked, as the surprise was evident on her face.

“My ex got that look when something bad came up, like she wrecked the car or ruined my favorite t-shirt. You know the ones with the half-naked hula girls. Genetics are a bitch.”

“I’m not sure I like the association,” she fired back, “but yes, we do need to talk and I didn’t want to include this in the general presentation.”

“So give” Jake said.

“To put it flatly, we don’t know what’s next,” she stated.

“What do you mean, what’s next?” Linda asked.

“I mean up to this point we always had some indication of what the NeHaw might do next. However, as of now we are so far off the map, we have absolutely no idea of their next move. There are no references in any of the NeHaw manuals or Treaty materials to anything remotely like this situation. And remember, everything I just presented was our best guess, we have no real means of validating it.”

Jake thought about that for a moment and then said, “Ok so let’s talk this through. First, we assume they know about the RF bombs, stasis shields and the rail guns, so coming here in any standard faster than light ships are out of the question. With our three re-enforced cruisers and their newest battleship, they would be out matched.”

“Jake, can’t they just boost their shields to protect themselves from the RF?” Sara asked,

“Even with updated RF shielding, that much high energy close up is still a viable weapon. It won’t work from a distance, it would have to be something like a space landmine. They would have to be right on top of it, but yeah we still have some life in that option.”

“What about non-standard ships?” Patti asked.

“That’s my thought. I imagine the NeHaw are dusting off all the abandoned and obsoleted technology they have on record, searching for a solution to this as well. Our one saving grace is they have a long way to go to get here and anything sturdy enough to stop a rail gun round is going to travel slowly.”

“Why are you so sure about that?” Patti asked.

“As a matter of reference, a traditional human top end heavy weapon is a 30mm machine gun. A 30mm diameter lead bullet weights 14oz. and travels at approximately 3,000 feet per second. Depleted Uranium is almost 70 percent denser than lead and the rail guns use 2 inch diameter rounds, or 51mm for you math challenged people,” Jake added while looking at Sara.

At that, Sara stuck her tongue out at Jake.

Continuing with a smile, he said, “It’s also longer so let’s just say its 3 pounds of hardened metal flying at 12,000 feet per second. For you non-physics types, Force equals Mass times Acceleration, but in our case acceleration equals velocity divided by time. For this discussion, time is a constant because in space, there is no deceleration whereas on earth, gravity and atmospheric drag slows the projectile over time.”

At this point Jake paused to survey the collection of blank expressions, “OK, so in simpler terms, that equates to about 4 times the mass and 4 times the velocity of a 30mm round. Or to make it even simpler, a 30mm as described hits with 122,378 foot pounds of force over 1.1 square inch surface area while the rail gun is 6,713,287 foot pounds over 3.1 square inch area. Final numbers are, the 30mm hits with 111,253 pounds per square inch while the rail gun is 2,165,576 pounds per square inch. That makes the rail gun about 20 times more lethal.”

Everyone sat staring at Jake. Finally, Patti asked, “Jake, why do you know all that?”

“I did the math before asking ALICE to build them. Engineer, remember?”

“And all that means?” Linda asked, clearly not wanting any more physics lectures.

Jake paused a minute, and then said, “When we patched the NeHaw ships, we found holes that went through three decks before the round stopped. Some in the bow area where its narrower, went completely through, top to bottom. They sent the battleship because it was so thick it could take the pounding. If they want to take us on here, they needed hardened hulls. I think that means we get a breather, maybe even a few years before they can produce a threat.”

No one spoke for a few seconds, mulling over the implications of Jake’s analysis. Finally, Jake asked, “Ok ALICE, you have been conspicuously quite at a time when you traditionally have some input?”

“I always enjoy watching fuzzy logic at work,” she replied.

“My sisters and I came to the same conclusion while working with Patti, however as the question was not asked, we chose to wait and see what you came up with separately, thus corroborating our conclusion.”

As Jake saw Patti puffing up, clearly taking exception to the comment, he jumped in, “So we agree. The NeHaw won’t come anytime soon?”

“We agree, but for completely different reasons. First, the NeHaw are a long-lived people, so what is urgent to you, would not be measured in the same time span for them, as you would expect. Fast can be years, not minutes.”

“As for the required technology to overcome their challenges here, they aren’t inventors, they acquire. We believe they are currently pressuring subjugated peoples into resolving this dilemma for them. Repressed cultures do not move faster than the least tolerated rate of progress.”

“Finally we believe that the developments in this sector have created some level of discord throughout NeHaw space. As was so eloquently explained by Patti earlier, every NeHaw controlled planet is a repeater of information. We would expect that the five Treaty planets disseminated their status throughout the network. Most likely the NeHaw are re-enforcing various locations throughout their controlled space right now.”

Jake caught the suck up. Clearly, ALICE knew she upset Patti with her earlier comment.

“So by hook or by crook, we all agree we have time to deal with this?” Jake offered.

“Yes” ALICE replied.

“With that, I am going to bed,” Linda declared, standing up, and kissing Jake on the cheek. She turned and headed to the door with Patti in her wake. Sara repeated the motion but added, “sleep well” with a knowing smile before turning and following the others.

As Jake was getting up, he stopped and turned to the door, not remembering if he saw Sandy leave with the others. In fact, he did not recall her in the last part of the conversation either. Moving slowly to the bedroom door, he peered around the corner.

Sure enough, Sandy was in his bed, covers pulled up to her neck and apparently sound asleep. He quietly moved to the far side of the bed and changed into a pair of running shorts. With his ribs still wrapped in the elastic bandage, he carefully slid between the sheets. Reaching out slowly he found the middle of her back, completely bare.

Rolling onto his right side and taking care not to anger his left, he snuggled up behind her. While trying not to wake her, he slid his arm, first around her waist and then his hand up to the center of her bare chest. Considering her sizeable bust line, this was no immediate task. With his head on her pillow next to her head, he noted a recognizable change in her breathing. He whispered in her ear, “You can stay, but be very gentle with me.”

With that, he could feel her sliding back until her entire bare body was pressing up against him.

----*----

The next morning Jake wandered into the familiar small dining facility on the same floor as his quarters. Before the onslaught of new recruits, this was their primary gathering place, but now it looked so small to him, and quite crowded. Sandy was already there with Sara and Kathy, having left Jake earlier that morning after a shower together. He was moving slowly, and she needed a change of clothes, so off she went, in her typical, “I just got some” happy mood.

He smiled, acknowledging the three as he went over to the counter to order and collect his breakfast. While waiting the few short minutes it took to arrive, he turned to see the three in what appeared to be a hushed conversation. So they would not be overhead by the surrounding tables, all three were leaning in closely. Jake laughed to himself thinking that with the dull roar in here, they could likely yell and no one would take notice.

Grabbing his tray, he headed directly to the three, sliding into a seat next to Sara and resisting the urge to give her a kiss. He realized all three were deserving of the same greeting. Not so distracted that he failed to notice the change in their overall posture, he asked, “So what’s up?”

“Nothing,” Sara replied, looking somewhat guilty, “why would you ask that?”

“From over there,” Jake answered, indicating the serving stations, “it looked like you were plotting something.”

“Who, us?” Kathy asked, batting her eyelashes.

“Speaking of guilty,” Sara added, trying to change the subject, “wandering in at almost 10am for breakfast makes people wonder why you were up so late last night?”

“10am!” Sandy blurted, jumping up and darting for the door.

“Bye” she managed over her shoulder as she headed out at a hurried pace, leaving the three staring after her, completely confused.

----*----

Since leaving Jake’s room last night, a sense of excitement filled Sara. The thought that they might actually get a few YEARS respite from the wave after wave of NeHaw aggression was too much to hope. She had immediately started formulating a plan to secret away with Jake for some long overdue rest and relaxation.

After the last engagement against the battleship, Jake had been making a habit of traveling between the ALICE facilities overseeing his “Special Project.” It was all very hush, hush and if you were involved, you were sworn to secrecy. Whenever Sara pressed him on it, all he would say is, “all in good time.” The strangest part was none of the rotation women was involved in any of it. In the past, Jake had always included at least one of them and usually Sara. Even Patti, the one outsider, usually had some limited involvement in Jake’s plans, but not now. She was suspicious Jacob, Patti’s brother, was, but couldn’t verify it.