Defender of the Empire: Cadet #1 (42 page)
Read Defender of the Empire: Cadet #1 Online
Authors: Catherine Beery
“Not you. The man I loved.” She replied softly.
“You mean the man who never existed? That man?” He asked cruelly.
“What do you want?” She asked softly.
He smiled and she shrank satisfyingly away. “What I want is to hear are the screams that are coming. To watch things tremble. They have been static for too long.”
“What are you going to do?” She asked in growing horror.
Betrayer grinned at her. “Use your imagination, Sylvia. You have a nice one.”
Books by Catherine Beery
(Click on titles to jump to order page)
The Ways of Mages
The Ways of Mages, #1 -Revised July 2012
The Ways of Mages: Two Worlds, #2 - Aug 2012
The Ways of Mages: Starfire, #3 January 2013
The Ways of Mages: Three Swords, #4 - 2013
Defender of the Empire
Book 2: Facades (summer/fall)*
Books by Andrew Beery
The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles
Liberation, #5 – 2014 (Summer/Fall)
*
*coming soon
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The Catherine
Kimbridge Chronicles #1, Inception
Personal Log
2067 was the year I died for the first tim
e
… It was painful. Had I known how often
I’
d be expected to die over the next several millennia, I might have made a stronger effort to stay dead.
The year actually started off rather nicely. I finished my PhD in high energy physics and was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in the United States Air Force. My first posting after the promotion was to the Lunar One Air Base where I worked with my father, Dr. Robert
Kimbridgeo
n“
The Project
.
”
“
The Projec
t
” was our name for a VASIMR Ion Drive interplanetary space craft that used Thorium LFTR reactors for both shielding and power. Capable of a sustained point one G of acceleration, our prototype was expected to make the Mars run in less than a week. By the end of November, the
ESX Arizona
was ready for her first trial runs, and I was her pilot. History has an odd way of repeating itself.
* * *
The newly promoted Lt. Commander Catherine Kimbridgesat at the controls of her highly modified light cruiser. The Air Force, along with most of the worl
d’
s militaries, had recently adopted uniform rank designations. Officers O1 and above utilized naval rank designations while enlisted personnel and warrant officers W4 and below utilized Army ranks. It still seemed strange to her to be in the Air Force and hold what, until a few years ago, had been a naval rank. Of course, the newness of her rank was in its own way strange.
The craft had originally been designed to transport a crew of fifteen between Lagrange Point Two (L-Point2) behind the Earth and the various lunar bases dotting the moo
n’
s surface. Before the
ESX Arizona
had been thoroughly modified by herself and her father, the craft had been expected to make such a trip in roughly a week. Now the much larger VASIMR engines could heat the
Arizon
a’
s
fuel to a plasma state in microseconds and provide enough thrust to make the trip to the inner planets in a comparable time frame.
The addition of several Liquid Fluorine Thorium Reactors (LFTRs), as well as the fuel pods for the VASIMR drive, limited the available space to three people. This was of little concern to the petite redhead because for this first trip she would be the only occupant. Her goal was to achieve insertion into a Mars orbit in 6.4 days. Considering the best time to date for a manned spacecraft was on the order of ninety days, this would be quite an achievement.
“
Lunar One, this is the
Arizona
. My board is green, and I show go for Mars burn
.
”
“
Arizona
, we confirm your board is green. You are go for umbilical disconnect and Mars burn. See you in two weeks and God speed
!
”
“
Roger that Lunar One.
Arizona
out
.
”
Cat, as her friends called her, leaned forward in her auto-molded acceleration couch and flicked on her AI unit. At the same time, she peered out the
nanite-infused dura-glass window of the cockpit. Lunar One was about a kilometer below her present position. At the moment, the
Arizona
was tethered to the terminus station anchoring the upper side of a lunar space elevator platform. One thousand meters of ultra-strong, incredibly flexible, diamond fiber weave connected the base station that was Lunar One with the terminus station that was Lunar One Beta. Technically the base station was Lunar One Alpha, but Cat had never heard anyone actually add the Alpha. Most people called the facility L1 and let it go at that.
“
Ben, disconnect umbilical and execute sequence Mars-1A when we are clear
.
” Ben was Ca
t’
s name for her AI. Computers had finally surpassed human's raw intellect, but they still lacked that spark of imagination that defined humanity. Nevertheless, since most experts now acknowledged that computers were self-aware, for all practical purposes, it had become common practice to allow them to choose their own names. When the AI that was Ben came online some four years ago it elected to pull a name from Ca
t’
s personnel fil
e
… the name of her first dog.
“
Umbilical disconnect confirmed. Drifting two meters per second. The
Arizona
will clear all moorings in twelve seconds
.
”
Cat waited while the seconds counted off. The last of Lunar One and its tethered twin slipped away.
“
LFTRs one, two, and three scaling up to 68 percent capacity. VASIMR thrusters powering up. Plasma drive is online. Commencing point one G burn in 5, 4, 3, 2,
1
… we are go for VASIMR drive at point one G. Estimated arrival at Mars insertion point in six point two days
.
”
“
Thank you Ben.
I’
m heading down to the engineering deck. Let me know if anything unusual happens
.
”
“
You are welcom
e
… Please define unusual within the current context
.
”
“
Ben, yo
u’
re a smart machine. Use your imagination
.
”
***
Yarin watched the small craft with eyes four and six. History was in the making. In point of fact, that was why the Heshe was there.
This young bipedal race was in many ways a younger version of its own. They had an amazing capacity for logic coupled with compassion. Yet, neither logic nor their vibrant emotions were their masters. They existed and built their society by establishing a middle ground between the two.
The ancient Heshe cast out with its sensor-enhanced consciousness for others of its race. They were few in number now... And growing fewer with each passing millennia. These humans, as they called themselves, would likely never meet the Heshian Expanse. The Heshe were leaving this section of the galaxy. Regrettably, the very thing that made humans so fascinating doomed the Heshe – and very likely humanity as well.
For all their knowledge and love of learning, the
Heshe had never lost their ability to believe in the unprovable. They, like their kindred spirits in these humans, had an innate ability to transcend their logic in regard to a faith in an uncreated creator. In many ways humanity mirrored the Heshe's own understanding of the divine.
Their love of the creator prevented them from taking life for any reason other than nourishment. When faced with the advances of an aggressive species they were defenseless. It was ironic that these humans were perhaps far better able to defend themselves, despite their vastly inferior technology.
Yarin hoped this was the case. It would be sad to see such potential lost when the D'lralu came to claim their fertile solar system.
The small craft was slowly making its way to the fourth planet. It was using a crude ion plasma drive that would literally take days to accomplish what
Yarin's quantum fold drive could accomplishin milliseconds. Still, this was a first for this young race. The technology being demonstrated would make practical the exploitation and exploration of the human solar system. This, in turn, would produce a paradigm shift in how humans viewed themselves and their universe. Their rate of technological growth would soon outpace anything the human species had accomplishe
d
to date. But would it be enough?
***
Cat Kimbridgeput down her fork. Dinner was a flash frozen smoked salmon steak with a light horseradish sauce and German potato salad from a famous national chain restaurant called "Teddy Peters." She sipped her glass of lightly sweet white wine. This was day six, and she was right on target for Mars orbital insertio
n
– hence the celebration.
Soon they would be in orbit, and the sensation of acceleration induced gravity would cease. One of the interesting innovations in the
Arizona
was a fully gimbaled living space that automatically rotated with acceleration to provide a consistent up and down experience for the crew. It wasn't artificial gravity, but it was the next best thing.
"Ben, Status report."
"All systems nominal. Orbital insertion in approximately 18.4 minutes"
"Report fuel status."
"Primaries are at 71 percent. Emergency reserves are at 98.3 percent."
Cat sat up straighter in her seat. 98.3 was not the number she had been expecting. "Explain the delta between the emergency reserves now and mission start."
"Certainly. At 18:42 on December 4, 2067 the port reserve tank was hit with a micro-meteor that breached the tank for sixty-eight seconds until the nanite fiber mesh could seal the hole."
"And why didn't you report this?"
"I just did Commander."
"Correction. Why didn't you report it at the time of the incident?"
"I was following your previous orders. Report only what is unusual. A loss of fuel due to micro-meteor impact occurs in 3.2 percent of voyages between Earth and Mars and is..."
"...therefore not unusual," Cat continued. "Ben, new orders. Please report anything that impacts the operational readiness of this ship by more than a percent in a time frame that is atypical." Cat was
so used to thinking of Ben as an intelligence in his own right that she occasionally forgot how incredibly literal AIs tended to be.
"Command accepted. Shall I also report anomalous reading occurring outside the ship?"
"Absolutely."
"Very good. I wish to report an anomalous reading outside the ship."
"Specify."
"Two spacecraft are approaching at .2c."
"What... Nothing we have can go that fast!" Cat screamed as she dashed for the bridge of her small ship.
"Thus the anomalous nature of this event," Ben continued in his monotone voice.