Ilox Saga 1: Eris Monroe: More Than Human (18 page)

“Yes?” Eris Monroe’s voice came over
T’sell’s internal link, but with no visuals.

“
Captain, I need you to order Doctor Xinhao to perform medical scans for all of the crew,” T’sell needed to know whether Tariv had any kind of unusual neural implants.

“Why? They have already been fully checked out by t
he medical teams before the Sparta even left for Alphard…” The Captain’s voice contained a hint of anger.

“Captain Monroe, my duties include security for the ship and the missions she undertakes. I need to have this done to eliminate certain
possibilities
for an investigation I am undertaking. Moreover, it can be done relatively quickly and painlessly, and in shifts. The crew shouldn’t mind at all and it won’t put much of a damper on efficiency since the stealth drive is not working yet…” T’sell could imagine the quick mind of Monroe working at light speed. She was not disappointed.

“Very well, I’ll give Doctor Xinhao the order…but I want to know what all of this is about once you’ve concluded your
investigation.” There was no formal severing of the comm link, no goodbyes – Eris Monroe was all business.
T’sell approved
.
Now I will wait on the data from the good doctor
.

The bridge of the Sparta was clean and shining as if it had just been spit polished. Even the overhead conduits and pipes that ran along the top bulkheads were dust free and gleaming. As she passed by her crew seated at various work stations, Eris took note of the chatter. Morale was genuinely high and the crew had lofty expectations. The mission on Planoss was mostly successful, which had boosted spirits tremendously; Eris was just waiting for the engineer’s to give the word. She called out again.

“Chief Saephan, are you ready for th
e test?” She saw the huge Orvod as he flickered into view - a pint-sized holographic display in front of her captain’s chair.

“There are
few minor problems, but now is good time, yes?” The Orvod, together with Eli Bowman and Lieutenant Commander Tariv had been working on the stealth generator for seven straight hours. Eli’s ability to interface with machines had helped tremendously in overcoming the obstacles and now they were ready to switch the device on for a full power test.

“Orders, Captain?” said Kizzara
hopefully. The pilot’s station was less than six meters from the captain’s chair that Eris was seated at, and the Evene pilot had swiveled her chair around to face her commanding officer. Kizz had been waiting for this moment with nervous anticipation. Kyle Arneson was seated next to her in the co-pilot’s chair as he handled navigation, double-checking the computers computations as a necessary fail-safe. He had been drinking coffee while they waited the last hour and a half for the engineers to be finished.

“Engage
null field,” Eris ordered calmly, “Let’s see what she can do…” Kizzara repeated the command to the engineers as she touched a small blinking red field on her holographic display; as she did so the field turned green.

“Stealth field activated. Board is
showing green - we’re undetectable…” Four technicians were busy at their workstations to the left of Kizzara and four to the right of Kyle. All of them had turned around to watch the Captain as she gave her orders and cheered as Kizzara gave the good news.

Kizz
leaned forward in her chair grinning like a fiend as her tail
swished
back and forth happily. “Destination, Captain?”

Eris stood from her
captain’s chair and walked to the operations display that showed the ships course in three dimensional space. The display could be interfaced with verbally or using fingers and hands to drag digital images in and out of view. She knotted her fingers together and rested her hands on the smooth cold metal railing curving away in front of her. The tactical display indicated the current location of the Sparta as a small white triangle in the Alphard system. A blue sphere denoted the planet Planoss as a distant orb and a translucent red line showed the course from the Sparta to the nearest jump point. Numerous graphs to the side of the main display presented additional information on the ship’s systems such as power levels, status of the main weapons, the ships shields and other points of crucial data. “Plot a course to the Ekaph system; we will be investigating the mining outpost on planet NSP362. It’s time we put the stealth field to good use.” Eris finally allowed herself to smile.

“Course computed and
locked in to the navigation computer,” said Kyle. “Nine jumps are needed to reach the Hellespont System in the Mirfak quadrant. From Hellespont, conventional FTL drive will be required - which will take an additional five hours to reach the mining colony located in the Ekaph system.” He took a sip from his coffee mug. “There are no known jump points located in the Ekaph system. There
is
a hydrogen-helium gas giant there so refueling shouldn’t be a problem.” The information displayed in front of Eris immediately changed, expanding outward to show a jagged course through three dimensional space and the jump points Sparta would traverse to reach the Ekaph system. Both Kyle and Kizzara had swiveled their chairs to face Eris – they waited on her command.

The Captain
looked to her navigator and co-pilot. “Mister Arneson, are there any contacts on ladar?”

Kyle
looked over the readouts for deep radar and ladar. “We’re negative on contacts in near space,” he called out. “Far space is negative as well.”

“Let’
s go,” said Eris forcefully.

Kizzara
turned her pilot’s chair back around as her hands flew over the controls and then took the
stick
to engage Sparta’s anti-gravity thrusters. The ship began to maneuver. A spacecraft behaved much like an airplane in a normal atmosphere in how it moved through space – primary controls on the control yoke governed the spacecrafts roll and pitch as well as yaw. However, unlike an aircraft, there was little to no gravity influencing its speed and no drag to speak of. Velocity was set by holographic throttle controls at the pilot’s workstation. A secondary manual control was also available in case of primary equipment failure. Sparta sped through normal space at an accelerating rate of velocity and would soon arrive at the first navigational destination…a jump-point of weakened normal space that would allow for the jump engine to engage and create a wormhole for the ship to fall into.

“Kizz, I’ll be in my quarters. Keep me apprised if anything unusual happens,” said Eris as she rose from the command chair and left the CIC.

“Aye aye, Captain,” came the silky reply from her pilot.

Eris took the main elevator down to deck two and walked briskly to her cabin. She
crisply returned the salutes of a few crew members that passed her by. With the soft click of her door locking she sat at her desk, crossing her legs.

“Computer, link me through
directly to Dominic Gray,” she called out. She had told her cabin computer to always stay in standby mode, and only be activated with her voice imprint. A few minutes had elapsed before Mr. Gray’s countenance appeared as a small holographic projection. He was wearing an expensive tailored charcoal colored suit with a white necktie.

“Captain Monroe, you have news?”
His demeanor was sanguine.

“We’ve got the stealth field working on the Sparta. It’s operational right now,” said Eris.

“Excellent, I knew that Hasephrey would be able to solve the square inverse problem.” Dominic rubbed his chin with his left hand. “How long until Sparta sets course for the Ekaph system and you get underway?”

“We’re already en route there
… the voyage should take nine total jumps – roughly thirty five hours. Assuming the null field generator continues to cloak the ship, we will achieve complete surprise.” Eris explained in an even voice.

“I’m sending you everything I have on
NSP362. By the way, the local miners call the planet Furnace…for obvious reasons I’m sure. A fascinating world, it was only discovered six years ago – a veritable goldmine of valuable metals and minerals.” Dominic Gray smiled. His perfect teeth shone white.

“What can we expect in terms of Alliance or Vortex forces?”
said Eris.

“My intelligence reports
estimate that the Alliance has put at least three brigades…roughly nine thousand men, down on the surface. They’re scouring the planet looking for the Initiator throughout the mines. I believe they are using the miners own digging MEKS and machines to create more tunnels in their explorations. Vortex forces are harder to estimate, but you should expect they have at least a thousand operatives scattered all over the planet.”

“What about Chol Cuxa? Is he there?” She had set her mouth in a tight line.
If he is, I will find him and kill him
, she thought silently.

“He keeps his itinerary and location well masked and hidden. I doubt he would personally oversee an operation of this size. The only way to b
e sure is to land on the planet and find out. You best put any thoughts of revenge far from your mind, Captain. This mission is paramount. Remember, the Alliance has multiple efforts underway to extract Valdren technology from various planets and systems. This is merely one of their many operations, though they
have
dedicated tremendous resources there,” said Mr. Gray. He adjusted his tie with both hands, straightening an imaginary crease.

“Alright…is there anything else we need to know about Furnace? Just how do you come by this information of yours?” Eris had wanted to know the answer to that question for some time.
“A lot of these
missions
seem to be high risk, without much chance of reward…”

“
Yes…these are
calculated
risks – but there are most certainly rewards. There is nothing else to be distressed about. As for how I acquire the information I give you…that is frankly none of your concern. Let me just state that the information you have been given is true.” Dominic appeared to move his hand to shut off the comm.

“Captain Monroe, you are off to a good start. Just remember what is at stake. The reason for all of this… Good luck down on Furnace.” His visage faded as the connection was terminated.

The reason is to avert an all-out war where the Alliance and their allies destroy the Republic and sweep through the galaxy
.
We must win…
Eris thought as she returned to the corridor outside her cabin. She walked back to deck one using the curved stairs found in the bow section of deck two. Stairs and gangways were found on the Sparta both fore and aft of the ship and were always built in case of power failure. An elevator could be disabled with loss of power, but not stairs. She arrived on the bridge just as the ship arrived at the jump-point in n-space.

“Jump point
in twenty-nine seconds,” said Kyle, sitting beside Kizzara. “Ready to engage jump-drive engine, Captain,” came Kizzara’s familiar voice as Eris walked up to the slightly elevated bridge platform.

“Engage jump drive,” said Eris as she sat at her command chair. The viewscreen turned purple and then black as the ship generated the tunnel
that would take the ship to the Matar system. From there, they would then jump to the Latross system, and so on, until arriving at their final destination. At the juncture that the jump-drive engine was engaged - a
Lindstrom tunnel
formed that the ship fell into…and it continued the voyage at incredible speeds. Sparta initiated the jump at the predicted time and continued on its way. To the people inside the ship, it was as if nothing had changed. Gravity, light, heat, air - all those things that a person could see or feel didn’t change at all…yet the velocity in real time was a billion times faster than what the ship had been traveling at in normal space.

The CIC was a hum of steady activity as crew personnel
came and went about their duties. Starships that traveled to distant star systems had to maneuver through normal space for minutes or hours until finding the exact weak point in the fabric of space-time, after which the jump-point engine was engaged. At that instant, space was collapsed into an artificially created and stable wormhole that became a shortcut between two distant points throughout the galaxy. However, jump-points always came as pairs - a singular point in one star system coincided with a paired point in a different star system. The distance between the two was never greater than two hundred light years. Traveling through a
Lindstrom
tunnel jump could take anywhere from thirty minutes to six hours, depending on how far the end-point distance was from the first jump-point and how much power the jump engine had access to. Thus, travel to systems that were extremely distant required multiple jumps and maneuvering through normal space. Total trip time to their destination was estimated at thirty-five hours by the ships computer.

The vast emptiness of space is generally devoid of anything that could slow the velocity or alter the trajectory of a starship.
Occasionally, t
here are clouds of interstellar dust that could cause a slight deflection in velocity or direction but the changes were so miniscule they would be negligible.
Hayles-Zinder
shields could absorb a fair amount of kinetic punishment as well and all military starships were equipped with such. Sparta was equipped with shields that were considered standard for a heavy cruiser in Earth’s Republic Fleet. One fairly common navigation hazard came from isolated charged particles and hydrogen atoms. Sometimes these particles formed clouds over a billion kilometers wide called
nebulae
and any ship impacted by the ionized gases could have their sensors distorted or warped. There were no nebulas indicated through their projected course; if there had been, the computer would have given a warning in blinking red and a verbal recommendation to alter course.

Three
hours after the ship made its first jump of the planned nine Eris found herself in her cabin attending to neglected but routine duties. She was sitting at a small fold out table cleaning her gauss assault rifle when a soft chime announced that someone was at her door. Various parts of the gun were arranged in a pattern on the tabletop, the black hardened durasteel of each part seemed to absorb all light giving each piece a dull finish.

“Come.” She didn’t look up as her executive officer
, Lieutenant Commander Malik, opened her door and walked in. He saluted and stood at attention. Wearing a dark one piece jumpsuit similar to what his team wore, he seemed alert. He noticed that she had her back to a wall and a clear view of the cabin door and the corridor that lay beyond.