Tipping Point in the Alliance War (13 page)

When
everyone is aboard, the cart just sits there – apparently awaiting
instruction.  There is no touch-panel or switch-panel.  There doesn’t
seem to be an input method for giving instructions and there is no steering
mechanism.  Science Officer
Basisht
suggests,
“Perhaps it is voice activated or controlled by thought.”

“Yes,”
responds the Captain.  Then he addresses the cart and says
“engineering”.  No response. ………... Suddenly, the cart begins to
move.  It takes an oblique route and after a few minutes it stops in front
of a section, which appears to be a medical facility.  “How did we get
here?” asks the Captain.

“I
don’t know,” says Doctor Kei, “but I did think about my medical
facility.   Perhaps that is how you control it – thought control.”

“OK,”
responds the Captain.  “Envision engineering and let’s see if it
responds.”  Doctor Kei envisions an engineering department and the cart
takes them to the engineering section.  “Well, that worked.  We need
to look inside engineering, briefly, and then we will move on to tour the rest
of the ship.”  The scouting party dismounts and tries to open the door to
engineering but without success.  Finally, Doctor Kei envisions the doors
swinging open wide, and the doors do ‘swing open wide’.  The engineering
tour lasts for more than two hours.

Back
at the cart, everyone loads up and the Captain instructs the team members, one
at a time, to envision a cafeteria.  He wants to find out if anyone else
can communicate with the cart.  No one except Doctor Kei can get a
response from the cart.  “Perhaps it is because I have a brain implant,”
suggests the Doctor.

“Ah
yes.” says the Science Officer.  “You have an implant so that you can
control the surgery equipment.”

“Yes,”
replies Doctor Kei.  “That is probably how to interface with the
technology of this species.”

“When
we return to the ship, we’ll have to search the records and find out who else
has an implant.  Right now our communications devices are reporting ‘no
signal’.  This ship is made with a material that blocks our comm signals,”
says the Captain.

 “The
Confederation officers from the Brutus will be able to access the controls –
they all have brain implants.” interjects the Science Officer.  “That can
be a real security problem.  We had better keep them away from this
vessel.”

“Absolutely,”
agrees the Captain.  “We need to screen for Confederation officers as soon
as we get back.  If there are any aboard the Courageous, they need to be
isolated in a ‘communications blocking’ section of the ship.

“Doctor
Kei,” continues the Captain, “would you please envision a Command Bridge? 
I would like to see what that section looks like and then we can make our way
back to the Courageous.  We will need to organize scouting parties and
begin to map the ship.  Eventually, we need to find the ship’s crew and
discover the cause of her condition.”

“Aye
sir,” responds Mei Kei.  Then she envisions the first Command Bridge she
had seen as a child.

***

Captain
Niles had expected that the alien ship’s Command Bridge would be much larger
than the Courageous’ Command Bridge, and he also expected that utilitarian
needs would require that the configurations be similar.  He is
right.  The function of the Command Deck is easily recognizable, but the
sheer size and the sleek design set this Command Bridge apart, as a masterpiece
of engineering artistry.  The holographic projections, at each work
station, create a life-like representation of the ship’s local-space and afford
an intuitive feel for how the ‘mother ship’ might be controlled.  Captain
Niles is like a kid in a candy store.

After
a time, the Captain returns from his walk-around-tour of the Bridge and orders
a return to the Courageous.  That is easy for Mei Kei.  She just
envisions the Courageous and the cart takes her there. 

There
is much to do - scouting parties, engineering science studies, medical science
studies, accessing and copying the computer core, etc.  There is no end. 
But, in the beginning, the Captain needs to know how many personnel aboard the
Courageous have brain implants and if any of them are Confederation sailors.

***

The
answers to those questions are: 12 people have brain implants, and none of them
are from the Confederation ships. 

• 6 of the implants are in the medical department. 
  (That
  made sense.  Medical technology is more advanced than the other
  fields and requires super-human capabilities.)
   
  
• There are 3 people with brain implants in the engineering
  department,
  
• 2 more in communications, and
  
• 1 in weapons.
  

That
group of 12 will be the ‘alien ship interface group’, and are assigned to
various research teams: 

o
  
there are 4 scouting
groups tasked with mapping and exploration,

o
  
there are 3 engineering
groups,

o
  
there are 2
communications groups,

o
  
there is 1 group in the
medical section.
and

o
  
there is 1 group in the
hangar, which is tasked with gaining access to, and control over, the sizable
‘fleet’ of vessels that is parked on the hangar deck.  

o
  
That
accounts for 11 of the ‘brain implants’.  The 12
^th
is Doctor
Mei Kei, who is tasked with accompanying Captain Niles as he explores the alien
vessel.

The
groups are up and running the next day.  Since their communications system
won’t work outside of the hangar section, they will use a system of ‘runners’
to deliver messages.  And they will share the available carts.

Captain
Niles considers security to be out of his control.  They are captives
aboard an alien vessel in deep space with no one to help them.  On the
good side, they are safe from the Confederation.  He lets the ‘alert
level’ fall to ‘level 3’, which is about what it would be in Alliance space.

***

The
Brutus

On
board the Brutus there are klaxons and alarms sounding, as the ship is pulled
out of warp-space - again.  “Battle Stations” thinks Major Dawkins as she
is awakened, first by the lurch of the Brutus being pulled from warp, and then
by the klaxons announcing the call to Battle Stations.  She is up and running.  

She prepares,
before bed, for just such an emergency.  She trains herself and her troops
to be instantly dressed and out the door, in seconds.  She steps out of
bed and into her prepared clothes and boots.  She pulls them up and around
her as she runs through the doorway.  In seconds she is on the Bridge.

The
2
^nd
shift is on duty and Marine Captain William
Esterling
has the Bridge.  Captain
Esterling
already has
the Brutus in stealth mode and moving away from the warp exit point.  The
Captain is giving orders to Tactical, to set the defensive weapons system on
automatic and to bring the offensive weapons online for battle, but
do
not
set the
weapons system on automatic - he explains that the rest
of their fleet is out there somewhere and they must be careful not to target
them.

Then
he orders Navigation to plot new warp coordinates, in case they need to get out
quickly.  “What are the sensors saying,” he asks.  “Are there ships
in the area?”

“Nothing
yet,” says Tactical.  “But they may be cloaked.”

“Any
signs of any more of our ships following us, out of warp?” the Captain asks.

“No
sir.”  Tactical responds.  “But they have been trained to emerge at
some distance, so that they won’t be trapped with us.  They may have
dropped out of warp, and gone to stealth mode by now.”

“I
have the Bridge now, Captain.” says Major Dawkins.

“Yes
sir.  You have the Bridge,” responds Captain
Esterling
.

“Engineering,”
the Major calls, as she presses the comm button.

“Aye
sir,”
comes
the response. 

“Status?”
inquires the Major.

“The
thrusters are nominal.  The warp drive is offline sir.  We were
pulled out of warp and the warp drive may have been damaged.  We are
running diagnostics.  We should know something in 5 minutes.”

“Keep
me informed,” instructs the Major and signs off before the obligatory “Aye sir”
can be heard.  

“Science
Officer
Klag
, review the warp drive data and the
ships’ computer files, searching for any anomalies that occurred around the
time of the warp exit”

“Aye
sir,”
comes
the response from the still sleepy Science
Officer.  

“Sir,
active sensors do not report any objects or gravity-wells within 200,000
klicks.  Scanning continues,” reports the Tactical officer.

“Thank
you, Tactical,” replies the Major.

“Engineering,
sir.”

“Yes
Engineering. 
Dawkins here.”

“The
diagnostics indicate that the warp drive is damaged, but not permanently
damaged.  Repair time estimated at 4 hours, sir.”

“Begin
repairs immediately, Engineering.  Do you need anything, or anyone?” asks
the Major.

“No
sir.  It appears to be straightforward, and we have the necessary parts.”

“Good. 
Keep me informed.  Bridge out.” says Major Dawkins.  “Science
Officer, did you find any anomalies in the data?”

“Perhaps,
sir,” Officer
Klag
answers.  “This forced warp
exit was different from the previous exits, which were caused by
gravity-wells.  This exit was caused by something like a ‘pressure pulse’
pushing us out of warp-space, from behind.  And if we were pushed out, it’s
reasonable to assume that the other ships in the fleet were also pushed out.”

“Keep
looking,” says the Major.  “See if you can determine the coordinates where
the rest of the fleet dropped into real-space.”

“Aye sir.”

“
Logistics,
lower the threat level to ‘Level 4’.  Order
the off duty personnel to eat and then to relieve the on-duty personnel, so
that they can eat.” orders the Major. 
(Marines fight much better after
they are fed, and she wants to make sure they are ready to fight.)

“Aye sir.”

“And
Logistics,” the Major continues, “have Captain Woo and the other
Confederation Senior Officers meet me in the Command Conference Room in 20
minutes.  Perhaps they will have some insight into this situation.”

“Aye
sir.”

***

Brutus
Command Conference Room

Major
Dawkins enters the Command Conference Room and the Confederation Officers,
except for Dan Woo, stand and salute.  Major Dawkins returns the salute
and thanks them for their cooperation.  Everyone knows that the Brutus has
dropped out of warp-space at an unscheduled time, and since there is no battle,
they know that it wasn’t the usual ‘gravity-well trick’, which the
Confederation forces have used in the past.

Major
Dawkins gets straight to the point.  “We dropped out of warp and our Science
Officer says that it looks like we were pushed out by a ‘pressure pulse’, from
behind.  Does anyone have any knowledge about a technology that can ‘push’
ships out of warp, or has anyone ever heard about a ‘pressure pulse’?” 

Captain
Woo answers first; “There was talk about a new technology, which could
create an explosion in warp-space, and would cause any vessel that was in warp,
to be pushed out.  The rumors that I heard were talking about a disruption
in the range of several light years.  The purpose of the weapon isn’t to
destroy ships, but rather to disrupt fleets by causing them to be separated.”

“Looks
like it works,” says Major Dawkins.

***

Brutus
Command Conference Room

………….
Science Officer
Klag
continues his briefing:

“Major,
the ‘warp drive data’ tells us, that the pulse was traveling at 30 percent of
light speed relative to warp-space.  We can assume that an explosion
happened in warp-space and caused the ‘pressure pulse’.  Because the pulse
came from behind us, it probably pushed the other fleet ships out of warp,
before it reached the Brutus.

Since
it is Standard Operating Procedure for our ships to enter warp in 5 minute
intervals, we can make an educated guess about where they may be.  We
should be able to reverse our warp-space course and exit warp after 5
minutes.  The ship that was immediately behind us should be in that
vicinity.”

“Get
ready to test that hypothesis.” says the Major

“Aye
sir.” responds Officer
Klag