SODIUM:3 Fusion (12 page)

Destroyers numbered 14, Cruisers five and Battleships three. And then there was one last massive ship following the others. On our long distance sensors it measured nearly 40 km across.

We had little to match the firepower of this incoming fleet. We would do our reporting, but the news would arrive home behind us if we used standard communications. Our mission to gather intel and then return home as quickly as possible was now of the utmost importance.

We dropped out of light speed, lined up and then launched our Drillers. It was then on to silent mode. It would take 16 hours of drifting before we would be able to turn our sensors back on. Again, the wait was agonizing. We could not see outside. As we drifted by, our knowledge of the alien fleet remained as it had been from a distance.

I looked around the cabin at the others and they were all busily reading away at Defender manuals. I suspected that I probably had the most highly knowledgeable crew of the USAC. They had modified our ship while in flight and come up with what were hopefully ingenious weapons. Their drive and determination had taken us to more than 34 times light speed.

The 16 hours passed slowly by, but pass they did. When the counter hit zero I flipped on the BHD and Bigg brought up the sensors. We were a full light hour behind the fleet and the view was impressive. Other than the long thin Carriers the other ships were indeed all saucer shaped.

We matched their speed and decided to trail them for several hours. In the distance beyond them I could see our tiny sun from its nearly two light year distance. It was not quite as impressive as it was from Earth. The feeling I was left with was one of being vulnerable. The massive fleet had us way outgunned. I could not imagine how we would possibly defend against it with our limited abilities and resources. Earth was in trouble...

For three hours we tracked and recorded the mega fleet. For three hours we saw no sign of our BHD drillers. We wondered if they had somehow not activated because they were six hours overdue. We marked the supplies down as lost as we prepped for our voyage home. I punched in the way-points for our flight plan. I had the others do a quick check of my numbers before pushing the throttle to full.

Distance to Earth... 1.93866 light years or 18,313,289,748,000 kilometers. Peak speed would approach 42 times light speed before deceleration. We would be home in just over 20 days.

As we sped away from the main fleet I began thinking of what the next 20 days of boredom would be like. We were captive in the small vessel. We could stand, but there was really nowhere to move around. I asked Whip how it was that we were able to sit in the chairs for so long without feeling weary and sore. She dug into an electronic manual and soon had the answer.

The reclamation suits that we all wore were equipped with thousands of small electrodes. Tiny high voltage shocks were constantly being applied to our bodies in patterns that would keep our muscles healthy. It was another of David Brenner and his team's ingenious creations. Whip noted that the manual stated that test subjects actually saw muscle gain over the course of a week while the suits were active.

I began to picture myself scooping Paige up off the ground with my bulging biceps before carrying her through the door to my quarters and laying her onto my anti-grav mattress. It didn't take long before my daydream was interrupted. It was Pop remarking that with our use of two reactors we would be cutting it close on our fuel supply on our trip home.

According to his calculations we would be down to 2.5% supply when we arrived. And that calculation had a plus or minus 3% accuracy. The last thing we needed was to run out of Sodium before reaching home. Space was a cold dark place.

Our flight path took us around the alien fleet and then straight back towards our tiny sun. For just over ten days we accelerated to just under 43 times light speed. We studied or played solitaire for 16 hours before another six hours of sleep was imposed upon us. That cycle was to be repeated daily for the duration of our flight.

Pop made power adjustments to turn off the ships lighting and consoles during periods of sleep. The savings were miniscule but with our potential fuel shortage every bit helped. On the thirteenth day Pop's calculations had our fuel supply showing us with 0.04% remaining upon arrival with a plus or minus 1% accuracy. We had about a 50 / 50 chance of running out of fuel.

He tagged our worst case as leaving us stranded just outside the heliosphere. The black void of space would not be our friend. I asked if there were any other systems that could be shut down. Eight minutes later the reclamation system was powered off and we each disconnected ourselves from our chairs.

We would be traveling the final week of our mission without food. The reactors on-board had the ability to produce small quantities of water. For seven days we would be sipping the water orally in an attempt to stay hydrated. Man could go without food for weeks but not without water. The shutdown of the reclamation system increased our numbers to 0.34% raising our chances to 70 / 30.

The last seven days were spent in silence with our consoles and the interior lighting off. The dim light that remained in the cabin was being emitted from several equipment LEDs. Two flashing green LEDs were my friends.

At the start of day 20 we dropped through light speed and entered the heliosphere. Pop quickly powered down the second reactor in a final attempt at conservation of our remaining Sodium. Its tiny amount of remaining fuel was diverted to the first reactor's feed.

As we passed Jupiter Pop's console lit up with a flashing ominous warning. We were out of fuel for the BHD leaving us with two hours of active skin and cabin oxygen scrubbers. I began broadcasting on our standard communications channels. We needed help. Our speed remained at more than 200,000 kilometers per hour but we had no steering.

Our current course would take us just past the Moon, but that was still three hours away. By that time we would be completely out of power... and oxygen. Thirty minutes passed before we got a response from command. Ten minutes after that the warble of channel 1647 chimed in on my audio implant.

It was Paige and they had two rescue ships on the way. The rescue Defenders would have to match our speed and then one of them would have to swing its rear door around to ours. A Sodium transfer would have to made in open space while traveling at the 200,000 kilometers per hour. The transfer would be done by tossing a small package of Sodium from the rear door of one craft to a waiting Astronaut at the rear door of the other.

Bigg volunteered for the duty. Defender A1 with its freckled red-haired pilot soon came alongside us. A quick maneuver placed the rear of A1 within 12 meters of the back of our craft. This would be our first chance to test out the new reclamation suit helmets. It was not something I looked forward to. Before depressurizing I did a full dump of our main fleet data to Battle Command.

With the active skin disabled and the cabin depressurized we had about 15 minutes to make the transfer, stop the reactor, reload the feed and finally to do a restart. With the reactor and active skin down we were vulnerable to space debris. Any strike would easily penetrate our aluminum hull bringing our journey to an end. We moved as quickly as possible to make the exchange.

With both rear doors open the Defensive specialist for A1 tossed a packet about the size of a baseball to a waiting Bigg. He had it on the first catch and quickly turned it over to Pop. The A1 crewman then sent over a line attached to a winch. Big connected himself to the line and was pulled to safety in the other craft.

The line then came back for Whip and within minutes she was aboard A1. I had volunteered to stay with my ship and fly Pop home when the power was restored. I was disobeying a direct order to go, but I was not going to leave Pop alone. Defender A1 quickly closed their rear door and reactivated their skin and BHD.

With our rear door closed and with five minutes of air remaining Pop struggled to reload the reactor feed. I asked if the second reactor was a viable alternative to which I was told a resounding no. The light on my wrist pad began to blink yellow as our oxygen levels dropped to under a minutes worth. We continued to zoom along at 200,000 kilometers per hour as we moved just inside the Asteroid Belt.

With seconds to spare Pop let out a yell as his final reload attempt bore fruit. We had one shot at a reactor restart. Our ships battery held just enough power to spark the fusion reaction. Pop held up crossed fingers as he pressed the flashing red holo-button on the reactor console. Seconds passed with no indication of success.

The reactor then began to emit a small glow that just as suddenly faded. Several agonizing seconds passed before the glow returned and began to slowly build. Within less than a minute the reactor began to power up. I struggled to breath as I looked down at my wrist pad. My oxygen timer read -2.03m.

Pop hit a restart of the cabin systems and seconds later the cabin began to pressurize. When a green light appeared on the cabin oxygen readout I reached up and flipped the latches on my helmet. The stale air of my suit re-breather was soon replaced with fresh clean cabin air. I took in a long deep breath. We had made it home.

Two hours after the reactor restart we were landing at Regents Field. Once down in the chamber we were taken to separate rooms where Techs removed our reclamation suits and hosed us down. The stench was horrifying. After the hose-down we were left to take showers. I took note of the fact that I had again lost weight. The reclamation suit and not having eaten for a week had worked wonders.

Strange thing about wearing the suit. You did not get hungry. I suspected they had some chemical fix in the IV to suppress those urges, but we had not been hooked up to the IV for a week. I dressed in a clean but now very baggy uniform and was then escorted into a debriefing. The recordings of the advance carrier and the full fleet had everyone in awe.

Just as we had entered the briefing room a team of Techs had come in hooking our IV ports to portable feeding units. We would be receiving the nutrition we had given up during our final weeks flight home.

I wondered how we could take on such an enemy with our meager defenses? Would Earth fall to these robotic ships? To a foe that we had yet to actually see? As voices in the room began to rise General Buck put his hammer fist down hard on the table. It drew everyone's instant attention.

He ordered each of the groups to start evaluating the data. Once they had a handle on what was coming he wanted action plans as to what we might do to try to stop them. Again he banged his fist on the conference table and the senior staff scrambled to begin their work. When the room had cleared he approached my team.

He wanted the details on how we had managed to destroy one of the carriers. I told him of our tactics and how I thought we had been a bit lucky with an attack not being expected. I did not think we would be that lucky again. A thousand fighters would be upon us in about two months and we had 78 Defenders ready for our defense.

The General then let us in on a contingency plan that had been in the works since the large fleet had been detected. Shell companies had been setup to design, plan and build factories overseas that would produce parts to be assembled here. He expected those plants to be fully operational in a matter of days. On our end we had another set of shell companies that were setup to assemble parts of the Defenders into larger sub-assemblies.

There were also two other chambers identical to this one with the first pilots expected from them in the next two weeks. By the time the alien carrier reached us we would have nearly 300 Defenders with their crews at the ready.

It was hardly a match for a thousand alien fighters. But, there was a second tier to the defensive strategy. Starting in another week we would be launching two rockets a day that would each be carrying four coil gun satellites. That would give us almost 500 coil guns encircling the earth. And then there was tier three.

After a briefing by the President and his Secretary of State we would be deploying three times the ground based coil guns at every major city around the globe. They were to be manned by each nation.

It was a technology we did not give up lightly, but it was the only way we could possibly protect the Earth's inhabitants. When the other major nations were briefed fully on what was possibly coming they were at first angry. With the gift of the coil gun technology they became very cooperative.

We had to all work together if we wanted to survive. At that very moment they were each receiving an updated briefing on what would be upon us in two months. General Buck had briefed the President personally telling him that a world wide effort was the only chance we had.

More than 4,000 heavy ground based coil guns would be in operation within that two month period. And with the size of the approaching full fleet behind them, he expected cooperation to only grow.

I told the general about our attempt to ambush the main fleet with our drillers. When asked for specifics of how it went I had to tell him that we did not know. We were not sure what had happened as there was no evidence that they had actually gone active before we left.

After a long discussion about the alien fleet the General dismissed us. We were given the remainder of the day to relax and rest. Bigg asked Whip to go with him to visit his son. Pop immediately made his way to the officer's lounge for a beer. I headed directly to Paige's lab.

I made channel 1647 private and talked with Paige as I walked. When I entered the lab I was met by a teary eyed wife who was ever so happy to see me. It was a feeling that I would surely not forget for the rest of my life. I wrapped my arms around her for a long embrace. I then knew what it was like for every sailor, soldier and airman who had ever had duty away from home. The welcome back made it all worthwhile.

We talked small talk for a bit before I asked what had happened to the QE comm link. She said that when we passed through light speed the link was broken. She had tried for hours to determine why and after a full day of effort had finally given up and determined that it was lost. She had removed the implant to run tests and had left it there in the lab.

She tried several times since to contact me but she guessed it was when we had again passed through light speed on our way to the main fleet. In my absence she had managed to create a second grouping of entangled particles. With one more she would be able to make another QE comm pairing enabling a second channel in another implant.

General Buck had given me permission to relieve Paige from duty for the remainder of the day. With my command we headed quickly to my cabin. Once inside I shed my baggy clothes and was greeted with an impressed smile. I scooped Paige up with my firm arms and laid her gently on the anti-grav mattress. For the remainder of the day we were in our own little private world.

In the morning I was directed to a refitting room where I was put into a new reclamation suit. I was then told that my training was complete and that I should report to Red for new orders. When I arrived at the DSim the rest of the team was waiting. We were greeted by a gracious Red who immediately foisted a set of shooting stars into each of our hands. The shooting star in the USAC was the equivalent of earning your wings in the Air Force.

There would be no more DSim for us. We would instead be utilized for instructing other crews until it was time for battle. Red sent us to a conference room where we would receive instruction on how to be an instructor. I looked forward to the task of yelling at a new crew for their mistakes.

After two days of instructor training I was given my first crew. Two Brits, an Israeli and an Indian. All women. They were eager and they were tough. They had been briefed about what was coming and were committed to giving all they could in the effort to protect our precious Earth.

I gave them hard scenarios. I pushed them. In two months they would be going up against a foe that had them outgunned and outnumbered. Their names were Kat, Kate, Inrasia and Krysa. The girls were each good at something that I had always had trouble with... multitasking.

When Kat barked an order the other three were on it. And they each had the knack of being able to focus on their own duty while keeping an eye on the others. The subtleties that I would rely on Bigg or Whip or Pop to catch were never missed by the crew. As a team they were tight.

For six weeks they put 12 hours a day into the DSim. Their final two weeks would be alongside my team in A55. It was imperative that I taught them everything I could as once in battle crew A277 would be our wing-man.

We would be going out in formations of three. The other team joining us was A104. Each of the early crews that had received the full training were being teamed with a crew from the accelerated class and one from the short class that I had been instructing on.

The rookies that I had been schooling were not as green as I had originally thought. General Buck had authorized the DSim code to be rolled into an online holo-game where thousands of teens and twenty-somethings had been in competitions for prizes for more than a year.

Two of the crew of A277 were regional winners of the ZZ Defender game. The Generals vision had been to generate a steady stream of experienced simulator pilots to fill the ranks of our new pilot recruits. Over a third of those newly admitted to the USAC had come from participation in those games. Every little item that was preplanned gave me hope that we at least had the right people in the top positions at the right time.

As the training continued the countdown clock had soon dropped to two weeks. We had gathered in a large hangar at Regents Field for the first flight test of more than 60 new crews. We would take to the heavens with 210 Defenders in a mass formation. Our weapons would be on sim mode. The DSim system had been tied into the fleet of Defenders.

As a safety precaution the ships had all been programmed with anti-collision software. There was no sense in losing crews and their ships during a simulation because of an accident. We would be flying in our formations and following battle instructions fed to us by the Tacticians. The alien carrier would be simulated on all sensors and monitors during the live flight.

We launched from the tarmac at precisely 2PM. It was a hot July afternoon. I split my view screen and had the view from Regents Field displayed on the left side. 210 Defenders taking to the sky at once was an impressive sight of blurry details.

The battle against the simulated alien carrier only lasted 45 minutes before the last Defender was turned into space debris. Half an hour later the last of our newly launched space guns were taken out. An advance of the simulation told us that the Earth would fall in less than a day. In less than a week Mankind could be sent back to the Stone-Age. It was a sobering thought.

As each of the ships met their fate during the simulated live battle they were programmed to turn and report to a rally point just above Regents Field. It was to be the launching point of each of the day's battles.

Half an hour after each of the simulations were lost a new one was starting up. The slaughter of our Defenders and their crews went on all day... every day... for the next nine days. Just before the start of our fifth attempt on the tenth day I asked Pop and Whip to simulate the Drillers in our weapons program. I wanted to see what the simulators thought they could do.

We passed the Driller info to our other two crews and by battles inception we had 18 Drillers at the ready. When our orders came down from the Tacticians we were questioned as to why our weapons supplies had been altered.

I asked why they cared as we had been unable to utilize our full complement of weapons for any of the battles we had been directed into. The result was a ground commander yelling at me over my audio implant. In every scenario we had been left on our own to contend with at least 15 alien fighters to our squads three. At our best we had managed to destroy four of them and temporarily disable two others.

Just before the swarm of fighters attacked I gave the order to launch all Drillers. By the time our squad had been annihilated we had managed 12 kills. It was the best performance by any squad since the simulations had begun.

When we had once again lined up for battle we had our full complement of 48 missiles altered to be Drillers. When the scenario had ended we had knocked out our 15 targets while losing two of our Defenders.

A55 flew on to take out two more alien fighters before finally being overwhelmed. When we had returned to our launch point the simulations were stopped and our squad of three Defender crews ordered to report back to Regents Field.

We were hurried through the elevators and tunnels and back to a briefing with General Buck. When we arrived the Tacticians were all over us as to what we had done. I told the General and the Tacticians that we had once again tried modifying our missiles to make Drillers. I had wanted to see how they would fair in a simulation.

The room erupted in chaos. General Buck once again slammed down his fist in a demand for silence. The General then directed comments. The Tacticians thought it counter productive when the crews were not following battle plans. They felt our best chance was with fully coordinated attacks where everyone did what they were asked.

I agreed that when the time came we would need to follow orders. But, we seemed to be repeating the same mistakes time and again in an effort to perfect a failing strategy. I asked the General for permission to take my squad out to meet the alien carrier before it reached Earth. I reasoned that it would give us a chance to once again test the Drillers for effectiveness.

In one day we could travel to the carrier, deploy a full barrage of Drillers and return back to the fleet for continued training. Our three ships would hardly be missed for perfecting the war strategy.

General Buck agreed and we were given orders to proceed with our plan. We had eight hours to have any weaponry converted and then 24 hours to carry out our attempt. If successful, the tacticians would fold the Drillers into their plans where they thought they would do the most good. If the Drillers failed we would most likely be flying into a disaster when the carrier arrived.

Pop, Bigg and Whip immediately made their way to the weapons technician area and began having the full complement of missiles for our three Defenders altered. I used the time to check in on Paige's effort at creating another QE comm pairing. When I arrived at her lab she was busily making adjustments to another audio implant. She had succeeded in her quest for a second entangled pair.

The new QE comm would be added to the implant of the red-haired pilot of Defender A1. The ground based end of the pair would be wired directly into the fleet communications system.

The following morning 16 Drillers were loaded onto each of the Defenders in our squad. Within an hour we had launched and were on a trajectory that would take us to the alien carrier. Nine hours at full throttle followed by nine hours of deceleration took us within firing range. The other crews were excited to finally be going up against the real enemy because after ten days of continuous dying in the simulated events they were getting depressed.