Tipping Point in the Alliance War (14 page)

***

The
Mother Ship

Back on
the alien vessel, Captain Niles is exploring the Command Bridge and the
communications section, when a runner comes with news that there has been an
important ‘find’, in the medical section.  The medical team has found
alien bodies inside of ‘stasis chambers’. 

Captain
Niles and his team arrive at the medical center complex, after a brisk 10
minute walk.  A guide is waiting for them and leads them to a large open
area, which is lined with ‘stasis chambers’.  Many of the chambers are
occupied.  There are two different species represented in the chamber
population.  One species is small and delicate in appearance with
disproportionately large heads - as compared to humans.  The other species
is taller – the average height might be 8 feet – and they have a normal
humanoid appearance, except for the fingers.  Each of the two hands has 7
fingers and 2 opposable thumbs.  The fingers are abnormally long – as
compared to humans.

 Doctor
Rkgnor
discovered the stasis chambers, so she briefs
the Captain and Doctor Kei on what they know, to date.  There are an
estimated 200,000 occupied stasis chambers and another 50,000, or so,
unoccupied chambers.  Doctor
Rkgnor
shows the
Captain, and his entourage, the computer readouts that are available at each
stasis chamber.  She then takes them to the ‘control room’ and shows them
the equipment which monitors the entire ‘stasis complex’.

“Do
you have any thoughts about who these individuals are?” the Captain asks. 
“Are they the crew or passengers?”

“We have
no idea at this time, Captain,” responds Doctor
Rkgnor
. 
“We are focused on gaining access to computer systems which will give us those
answers.  The ship’s computer can read our implant signals but we have not
yet been able to ask a question and get an answer.”

The
Captain nods his head and says: “That’s a good choice of direction,
Doctor.  Keep going with that effort and keep me informed of any success,
or any evidence of a ‘denial-of-access’.  I know that if I had a ship like
this, I would tell the computer to only allow access to particular need-to-know
individuals.”

“Yes
sir.  I agree that the computer probably will be selective about giving
access.  That’s why we have sent people to the crew quarters and passenger
housing.  They have been directed to search out game interfaces or
‘learning centers’, which might be open to the general population,” Doctor
Rkgnor
answers.

“Good
work, Doctor.” The Captain says as he is leaving.  “And keep going.”

“Aye
sir.” responds the Doctor.

***

Captain
Niles addresses his entourage, which consists of Doctor Kei, a scientist, a
mechanical engineer, a computer expert, a weapons expert, and a couple of
‘gofers’.  “Let’s borrow this cart long enough to get to the hangar
deck.  I want to have a look at a couple of the ships which are docked
there.  Getting a computer to answer a question might be easier on a small
vessel than it is on the ‘mother ship’.”

***

The
Captain has his eye on two ships.  One is much larger than the Courageous
and the other is a much smaller vessel, which might be a run-a-bout, or even a
‘life boat’.  He decides to go for the small one first.

He
asks: “Doctor Kei, can you get the door open?”

Doctor
Kei makes a funny expression and wiggles her nose, as she envisions the door
opening.  And the door opens.  It always surprises her when that
happens.  It’s like magic.

Captain
Niles chuckles at her entertainment and then leads the way, into the small
ship.  Once inside, he looks around and speaks to the rest of the
group.  “We can get the doors to open and close, but what can we do to
cause the computer to give us information?  Doctor, look at that ‘view
screen’, and envision the computer giving us instructions about how to fly this
craft.”

Doctor
Kei follows his instructions.  A video begins to play on the screen but
there is no audio – except for Mei Kei, who can hear the words in her
head.  She points to her ears and nods, so that the Captain understands
that the audio is in her head.  Then she adds, “The language is Alliance
‘common’.”

“Can
you envision audio coming out of the walls?” 
he
asks Mei Kei.

She
closes her eyes and envisions the audio coming out of the walls, and there it
is - audio and video lessons, on ‘how to fly this spacecraft’.  Since they
are in the hangar with the Courageous, their communications equipment is
functional.  Captain Niles calls the Courageous and has a team of
technicians sent over, and he instructs them to copy the video and audio. 
He instructs the Officer on Duty to immediately have people begin training, on
piloting this vehicle.

They
go to the larger ship and do the same thing.  Now, can they do the same
thing with the mother-ship?  

***

Doctor
Kei tries her magic again, on the command deck of the mother-ship.  This
time no video is displayed and, in her mind, she hears the words:
“Restricted.  Access denied.”

“Well,”
says Captain Niles.  “At least we got a response.  Doctor Kei, can
you envision yourself as a little girl who is lost in the woods, at
night.  You wander around for a while and then you find this beautiful
space ship.  The door opens and you go inside, but you are still lost and
you don’t understand anything.”

“I’ll
try.” she says in a ‘little girl’ voice.

***

The
Brutus

The
Brutus, along with three of the recovered ‘little fleet’ ships, emerges into real-space
at the calculated coordinates.  They are looking for the fourth ship,
which was behind them when the fleet was pushed out of warp.  The sensors
don’t pick up a vessel, but the Brutus sends out a communications ‘burst’,
which is a secret recognition code among the Alliance fleet.

The
missing ship decloakes and the allies move toward each other.  The
Everdorne
is fully functional, except that its warp drive
has been ‘fried’ - it is beyond repair.  

Major
Dawkins discusses the issue with the
Everdorne’s
Captain and decides to leave the ship where it is, with the intention of coming
back after the remaining ships are recovered.  The fleet of four vessels
slips into warp-space to look for the remaining two ‘little fleet’ ships.

The
next location is five minutes away in warp-space.  The Alliance fleet
emerges from warp to find two wrecks floating in space.  One ship is the
remains of the
Xcredet
– one of the Alliance fleet’s
captured ships – and the other is a Confederation warship.  The Brutus
scans for signs of life and finds some on the
Xcredet
.

The
survivors of the
Xcredet
are rescued and are quickly
debriefed, in the presence of Major Dawkins. 
Xcredet
had been pushed out of warp-space and had been cloaked, while waiting for help
to arrive - or until their Captain decided on a course of action.  Three
Confederation warships emerged from warp and found the
Xcredet
,
after an exhaustive search.  They attacked the Alliance vessel and in the
ensuing battle the
Xcredet
was destroyed, along with
one of the Confederation vessels.

The
fact that the Confederation vessels could find the
Xcredet
,
while it was hidden and cloaked, indicates that the Confederation ships knew
that a vessel was at that location.  The ship’s coordinates were probably
‘guessed’, because the Confederation has found the last ‘little fleet’ ship and
knows that they routinely enter warp in 5 minute intervals.
(Major Dawkins
makes a mental note, to vary the warp entry interval.)

Major
Dawkins puts her ‘little fleet’ on notice, that they will probably encounter
enemy ships at the final real-space coordinates.  She orders her Marines,
on all vessels, to prepare ‘boarding parties’ and to have them stationed inside
their launches.  If there are Confederation ships, they will be easier to
capture than to destroy.  Major Dawkins makes plans for all of the ‘little
fleet’ ships to emerge from warp at the same time, and some distance apart, in
order to surprise and surround any Confederation forces.  After
preparations for battle have been completed, they set off into warp-space.

***

The
five minute warp trip is tense, with everyone at Battle Stations.

When
the Alliance ships exit warp, they find themselves in a ‘nest of vipers’. 
There is a fleet of 12 Confederation warships lounging around the dead carcass
of the last Alliance ship.  They are de-cloaked and unprepared for the
assault, which erupts from the Alliance vessels.  The Confederation ships’
shields are not even up.

 The
Alliance ships launch a shock-and-awe barrage of weapons and ‘cover fire’,
which is designed to frighten and confuse the Confederation crews.  All of
the enemy’s attention is on the weapons assault from the Alliance ships. 
The launches, filled with Space Marines, are unnoticed as they stream out of
the aft hangar doors of the Alliance ships.  With this strategy, there is
the hope that some of the Confederation ships will be destroyed or damaged in
the surprise attack - but the bigger hope is that the boarding parties can
capture the vessels.

In
fact, three of the Confederation vessels are out of the battle within the first
five minutes, due to the assault by the Alliance vessels.  One of the
ships explodes and the two others are disabled, and life-boats begin to stream
from them – that will help to mask the Marine launches as they approach the
enemy vessels.  That lowers the enemy combatant ratio from 4:12 to 4:9 -
better, but still not good odds.

All
of the other enemy vessels sustained damage in the initial onslaught. 
Four of the remaining Confederation ships have fires, which are visible through
hull breaches, but all of them now have their shields UP, and are returning
fire.

The
Alliance ships quickly position themselves behind the destroyed enemy ships,
and hunker down to wait for the results of the ‘boarding party’ attacks. 
The Confederation fleet has moved to surround the ‘little fleet’ and is
beginning to organize an assault.  That plan goes into total disarray, as
Marine boarding parties begin to gain access to ships’ interiors, and the
Confederation fleet becomes aware of the new danger.

Within
the first 45 minutes of battle, there are boarding parties inside of four
Confederation vessels.  Those vessels are out of the battle, and their
futures are certain.  Either they will self-destruct, or they will be
captured.  ………………….. One of those ships explodes, taking the crew and the
Marine boarding party with it.  The other three boarded Confederation
vessels are captured. 

The
remaining Confederation warships break off their attack and begin to run in real-space,
at maximum speed.   Their hope is that they can get outside of the
gravity-well -
which was created by the ships in the battle-space
- so
that they can enter warp.  Two of those ships have already been boarded
and those are captured by the Marine boarding parties, before they can make it
to warp-space. 

The
Alliance vessels give chase, but the three remaining Confederation ships escape
and disappear into warp. 

 
The Alliance forces now focus on consolidating their gains.  The Marines,
on the captured vessels, quickly secure the enemy sailors.  Because of
their experience and training, the Marines have the captured ships ready for
transport, within 2 hours after the cessation of battle. 

Major
Dawkins decides to let the Confederation survivors take care of
themselves.  Some of the destroyed ships have working ‘life support’
systems and the sailors, aboard those vessels, can rescue their comrades. 
The Confederation Navy will be back soon, with reinforcements.  The three
escaped ships will spread the tale of the Marine boarding parties, so that
secret is already out.

The
Everdorne
needs a new warp drive, so the Major orders that
a functional drive
be
cannibalized from one of the
damaged Confederation vessels.  While they are at it, the ‘cannibalization
detail’ takes some thruster engines - for spare parts - and restocks the
‘little fleets’ supplies of munitions, spare parts, and food supplies. 
One of the Alliance ships is tasked with delivering the warp drive to the
Everdorne
and assisting in the repair work.

Now,
Major Dawkins has a different kind of problem.  There is no way to get
five more crews out of the Alliance fleet, which is already stretched
thin.  At best, she can only reassign enough Alliance crewmembers to
provide crews for two of the new ships.  That leaves three newly captured
vessels, with no crews.  What to do?

The
Major contacts
Benji
Woo, the captured Confederation
Dan, with an offer that – she hopes - he can’t refuse.  Dan
Benji
Woo and his senior officers are escorted to the Command
Conference Room, of the Brutus.  The Confederation crew members have
witnessed the recent battle as it played out on their view-screens, and they
are aware of the outcome.