Second Earth (17 page)

  
“Be safe out there,
Shawn.” she said, trying desperately not to sound worried.

  
He smiled confidently.
“You know something? You talk too much.” He leaned in and gave her a more
passionate kiss. As he separated from her, he brushed the side of her face with
his index finger. “I’ll be back soon. Maybe then we’ll pick up where we’re
leaving off?”

  
Melissa smiled.
“Get out of here, hotshot, and take your ego with you.”

  
T
he
doors to the
Rhea
’s combat
information center whooshed open and admitted Melissa to the compartment after
she’d rounded the last corner and presented her IDC to the appropriate card
reader.
Upon entering the
space, a male communications officer near the door was the first thing Melissa
heard as she walked along the raised platform at the rear of the compartment.

  
“Unidentified
vessel, unidentified vessel. This is the USCS
Rhea
. You have entered restricted space. Please identify yourself
or leave the system immediately. I say again, please identify yourself or leave
the area immediately.”

  
As the officer once
again repeated his request, Melissa was nearly barreled over by Krif, who had
stormed into the compartment a moment after her. After quickly sidestepping the
stampeding captain, she watched as he headed to the far side of the room, where
an attractive human brunette stood behind a podium-like station.

  
“Status, Commander
Hayes.”

  
“Unidentified
vessel entering the system, Captain. They appear to be on an intercept course.
We are at condition yellow: all flight crews have been ordered to immediately
stand by, all medical departments have checked in and are ready, and all damage
control parties have mustered and are at station-keeping.”

  
Krif gave the tall,
fair-skinned woman a curt nod. “Very good, Commander. Where is the executive
officer?”

  
“Commander Ashdoe
just reported in. He’s in auxiliary control, and has assumed operational
command of the compartment. All primary and secondary computer and
communications links to AuxControl have been established.”

  
“Good,” Krif said.
He looked around with the utmost confidence, the master of his domain.
“Communications officer?”

  
A young,
dark-skinned man turned to face the captain. “Yes, sir?”

  
“Any reply from the
unidentified vessel, Lieutenant Clifton?”

 
 
“No, sir. No reply.” The man’s voice carried a
distinctive accent, but at this distance Melissa couldn’t discern if it was
Creole or French.

  
“And you’ve tried
every frequency spectrum?” Krif asked, his hands firmly on his hips.

  
“Yes, sir. Twice: all
bands and in all known languages. Whoever they are, they’re either not
receiving us or they’re ignoring our hails. I’m afraid I can’t tell which.”

  
“Sensors?” Krif
yelled into the air.

  
Sergeant
Fredericks, who had earlier relieved the incompetent Lieutenant Stover under
Krif’s direct order, spoke up loudly from the long-range sensor station behind
the captain. “Yes, sir.”

  
Krif half-turned
and had to look up to the sergeant who was seated on the raised platform now
behind him. “Fredericks, right here and now you are my eyes, understand?”

  
The young man
looked calm and collected, the model enlisted man who had temporarily taken the
place of a well-trained officer. “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

  
“Good man. Tell me
what I’m seeing.”

  
Sergeant Lance Fredericks
looked into the wavering screen before him. He had his sensors’ headset on,
which used a small screen that received everything the sensors could discern
about the object directly. It glowed with a soft blue aura around his face as
his fingers danced across the computer terminal to correlate the data. “I’m…I’m
not exactly sure, sure.”

  
“That’s nowhere
near a good enough answer, specialist. Now, give me something I can use or
you’re fired.”

  
Fredericks typed
away at the holographic keypad once more, trying to get the sensors to display
something that correlated with his years of training and experience. The screen
before him was awash in statistics and specifications about materials that had
no known reference in the ship’s extensive library computer.

  
“Apologies,
Captain. I can’t tell you what it is, sir, but I can
definitely
tell you what it’s not.”

  
“I’m waiting on
pins and needles here, son. Just spit it out or I’ll call up your relief,” Krif
replied impatiently.

  
“Sir, it’s
unquestionably not one of ours. No way. The hull materials are way off.”

  
“Keep going,
Fredericks. Is it anyone else we know?”

  
Melissa watched as
the young enlisted man shook his head in frustration.

  
“Not that I can
tell, sir. It conforms to no known specifications we have in the database. Hull
materials and markings—at least, what I
think
are markings—are totally alien in origin.”

  
A lump formed in
Melissa’s throat. The
Rhea
’s
computers were up to date with the latest library and sensor data known to the
Unified Collaboration of Systems. If the sensors were unable to identify the
interloper, then the intruder was a wildcard—and capable of anything and
everything at once. It was also entirely possible that they could be completely
benign. This was where Captain Richard Krif, with his incredible arsenal of
firepower and diplomacy, would either shine or be tarnished forever.

  
“And they are not
Kafaran?” Krif asked.

  
Fredericks
rechecked the sensor palettes, making sure they were turned optimally for
anything that could even remotely identify the target. “I really can’t say,
sir; a very small fraction of the materials in the hull
do
conform to known Kafaran construction materials. But it’s only a
minor percentage, Captain.”

  
“Could it be a new
design? Something we’ve never seen before?”

  
“I can tell you
this is something that
no one
has
seen before. There are no records of contacts with any vessels matching this
description in the Unified database. If it is Kafaran, then they’re playing a
whole new ball game. This is nothing like anything else we’ve ever encountered
from them before.”

  
Krif strode up to
the holographic status table on the upper level of CIC. “Operations Officer?”
he called down to the starboard side of the room.

  
“Yes, sir?” replied
the soft voice of Commander Caitlin Hayes from the flight commanders podium on
the other end of the compartment.

  
“Commander, which
reconnaissance unit is on deck right now?”

  
Without even
looking, the lithe woman had the answer ready for him. “Lieutenant Mitchell of
the Star Kings, sir; launch bay three.”

  
“Excellent,” Krif
said, smiling. David ‘Hawkeye’ Mitchell was the best ELINT pilot on the ship.
It was his right to be out there. “Clear Hawkeye for launch immediately, and
send out a pair of interceptors to cover him.”

  
“Yes, sir. I’ve got
Black Lions Two and Four lined up and ready to launch.”

  
“Very well. Let ‘em
fly, Commander. Then put three more on standby, just in case.”

  
“Yes, sir.” She
gave Captain Krif a curt nod, then leaned over her console. She brought up
three holo-images of the individual pilots from each of the three craft and
gave them their orders. With a push of a button, the three officers were cleared
to launch.

  
On the port side of
the
Rhea
, three hexagonal doors
opened in unison. From the openings, Lieutenant Mitchell’s craft was launched
first and was immediately flanked on both sides by the two Seminole fighters
from the 492
^nd
interceptor squadron, the Black Lions. Within
seconds, the three craft rocketed away from the
Rhea
with all available speed toward the unknown ship that was
quickly nearing the edge of weapons range with the Sector Command carrier.

  
Richard leaned over
the status table, watching intently as the three icons representing his patrol
squadron moved quickly away from the carrier. “Chief of Security?” he called
out, addressing the most senior security officer in the room.

  
An older,
olive-skinned man stepped up to Krif’s side, his gleaming sidearm plainly
visible even in its holster. Krif was glad to see one of the biggest and
strongest men he’d ever known stand beside him. “Yes, sir?”

  
“Lieutenant
Commander Wamata, I need you to go down to the brig and bring up that sensor
specialist from the
Icarus
,” Krif
ordered.

  
“Lieutenant Garcia,
sir?”

  
Krif nodded slowly.
“Something tells me that he may have seen what we’re looking at right now. I
want him up here. Double-time it, Commander.”

  
“Yes, sir.” Wamata
said, turning his nearly two hundred fifty pounds of bulk from the captain and
bounding out of the space. “Make a hole!” he shouted to a meek-looking ensign
as she entered through the main door, causing the small girl to nearly jump out
of her skin. “Coming through!”

  
Melissa stepped up
beside Krif and watched the holographic image of the unfolding reconnaissance
mission.

  
“What happens if
they get into trouble?” she asked.
 

  
Krif didn’t bother
taking his gaze from the image. “My people are the best trained in the fleet,
Agent Graves. They can more than handle themselves.”

  
From below
Richard’s position, the fresh-faced lieutenant sitting at the communications
console spoke up. “Captain Krif?

  
“Yes, Lieutenant
Clifton? Did you get through to the intruder yet?”

  
“No, sir. Not yet.
We’re receiving a communications echo, though. It’s as if our transmissions are
being scattered.”

  
“You mean like they
were being jammed?” Krif asked with impatience.

  
“Not really, sir.
It’s more subtle than that.”

  
“Try broadcasting
outside the system. Establish a link with our nearest communications relay
station.”

  
“Yes, sir. It’s not
going to be easy with all this interference.”

  
Krif didn’t like
not having the whole picture. Now with the revelation that, should the
Rhea
and her escorts encounter any
trouble, they wouldn’t be able to accurately call for backup, it made him all
the more nervous.
 
Hopefully Mitchell and his patrol squadron will give us something more
to go on.
“Just keep on it, Lieutenant. Notify me the second you have
something.”

  
“Yes, sir.” Clifton
said, and then turned back to his equipment.

  
“Captain,” Caitlin
spoke up from the forward flight control station. “Hawkeye and the Black Lions
are nearing the target.”

  
“Communications,
patch me into the ELINT.”

  
With a swipe of his
dark hand across his screen, Clifton changed the image in front of him to
indicate the three icons of the patrol squadron. He pressed his finger against
the one representing Mitchell’s E-41 and began speaking into his headset.
“Hawkeye, this is control. Acknowledge.” When Mitchell responded on the signal,
Clifton turned and gave Krif a nod.

  
Krif pointed a
finger and waved it in a lazy circle above his head. “Pipe it through the
overhead speakers. I want everyone to hear what’s going on.”

  
As Clifton entered
the command, a single beep was heard throughout the entire command center,
indicating to everyone that something was about to come through the speakers
and that they should pay attention.

  
“Hawkeye, this is
Krif. Respond,” the captain called toward the overhead.

  
“This is Lieutenant
Mitchell,” the young man’s voice echoed around the room.

  
“What do you see at
out there, Lieutenant?”

  
“It’s difficult to
describe, sir. This thing is massive…easily several hundred feet longer than
the
Rhea
. It looks almost organic in
nature. Like…the bottom of an uprooted tree trunk. It’s tapered to a point at
what I would consider the front of the vessel, with larger, vertical points
protruding from the stern. No acknowledgement thus far to our requests for
communications. I’m swinging around the vessel to port to get a closer look.”

  
“Continue to
maintain a safe distance, Lieutenant,” Krif heard Caitlin say into her headset.
“Black Lion Two, any sign of resistance?”