Invasion Page 17

  “Tavia, we are going to intercept those ships; Hatch make us invisible,” Alaya ordered. After a few seconds, Hatch indicated they were invisible.

  On the floor of the hangar, the commandant and some others, along with Captain Neumann were watching as the scout ship prepared to depart. Suddenly it vanished and Captain Neumann hoped the security cameras captured the looks on the other’s faces. They then felt, rather than saw the Mary Rose take off and move out of the hangar.

  “What did I just witness?” Commandant Schneider asked.

  “Their ships can be rendered invisible, which makes them an ally worth having,” Captain Neumann responded.

  “I am in shock that such a technology exists, but once corporate spies discover its secret, then it will no longer be special to them.”

  “I too thought about that, but it is the serpent’s technology and in three centuries the Romani have studied it and never learned how to work it. All of their warships have serpents aboard to maintain invisibility when it is needed.”

  “I am overwhelmed,” was all the commandant could reply and they returned to the tactical room while Captain Neumann went to prepare his family for evacuation.

  The Romani ship did not show up on the colony sensors, but the three unknown vessels were now closer, but still almost four hours out.

  The Mary Rose went to flank speed to intercept the unknown vessels. When they had covered half the distance to them, Olivia suddenly looked up from her console, “Captain, there is an energy surge not far from the ships.”

  “Is it from them?” Alaya wondered if the ships were a ruse and they were working with the Saltic.

  “No, Captain. There has been no change in the energy signatures or output of the unknown ships. There is a wormhole forming.”

  “Then we can be sure we are getting company. If it is a harvester ship, then we and the colony are in trouble,” Slone pointed out.

  “Captain, a ship just exited the wormhole. It is an escort vessel and the wormhole closed behind it. There is a frantic call from the human ships.”

  “Put it through.”

  “Attention colony, the ship that just came out of the energy field is the one that took out our colony. I am not sure we can outrun it. We need help.”

  “Olivia, put us through to the ships,” Slone ordered.

  “The channel is open.”

  “Attention, human vessels continue on course and maintain speed. We will be with you shortly and will take care of the enemy vessel.”

  “We see only the enemy and not other ships.”

  “We are invisible and do not plan to drop our cloak. Just do as told and you will be fine.”

  “We will maintain course and speed as best we can, but one of our corvettes is laboring and we are not sure if their engines will hold up to the stress.”

  “We are passing you now,” Slone told them. Then turned to his wife, “Alaya, call general quarters.”

  Alaya pressed a button and the klaxon went off calling everyone to battle stations and indicating the Special Forces should arm themselves. They were down four legionaries but the wounded were back with the group and ready to do their duty. Alaya knew there were more Saltic aboard the enemy vessel than she had Special Forces, but you have what you have and the Romani did not really worry about such things. Just as they passed the human vessels, one of the corvette’s engines flamed out and she drifted on momentum only.

  “We lost one of our ships. We have no ammunition to defend ourselves so we must leave her to her fate. I hope you are truly invisible and out there.”

  “Sss. Captain, we are in weapons range of the enemy,” Deadeye reported.

  Slone looked at his wife and nodded. She would now fight the ship. “Load missile tubes with ship killer missiles. Open fire with the pulse cannons.”

  “Sss. Yes Captain.”

  Deadeye placed the reticle on the enemy ship and opened fire. The pulses of energy slammed into the Saltic vessel and began to gouge out portions of the hull.

  “Lock and fire missiles as they bear and keep up the pulse cannon shots.”

  Suddenly missiles began streaking out of nowhere and slamming into the Saltic. The result was to gouge out large holes in the hull. The Mary Rose began to move around the Saltic ship in a circle, maintaining a constant rate of fire. The Saltic gunners were of a better quality than usual and must have noted that they were dealing with an invisible enemy. They watched where the energy bolts were coming from and fired a burst of their own energy pulses. Most missed but four managed to hit the Mary Rose. Two breached the hull in the crew’s quarters and those breaches were quickly patched with portable hull patches. One hit the bridge, whose armor was up, but it penetrated nonetheless and just missed Olivia, but grazed Hatch who fell down, wounded and the ship lost invisibility. The fourth hit was on the manifold of the starboard engine. Since the corvette only had two engines that made it more difficult to keep it from pulling to starboard since some of the energy was bleeding out. Since they were now visible, they had to deal with a straight up fight.

  “Olivia, go back to engineering and see what you can do about that engine hit,” Alaya ordered. “Deadeye, concentrate fire where we know the hydrogen bunkers are on the enemy. Keep up constant pulse and missile shots at them.”

  “Sss. Yes, Captain.”

  The Mary Rose continued to sustain several more hits but the fire from the enemy was becoming more erratic, and the hits did little damage. Blue Scale had taken over the sensor console when Olivia left to tend to the engines.

  “Sss. Captain, there is an energy surge in the enemy ship that is spreading throughout the interior.”

  Alaya looked out of the starboard side of the bridge and could see the enemy ship’s outer hull cracking from within and space putting out the underlying flames. She knew intuitively that the ship was dead and moving by momentum only. “Tavia, take us close to the enemy.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Optio Brave Claw, take a boarding party over with some of your techs and collect all of the focusing crystals you can find as well and any hand weapons.” Ever since their encounter with the Saltic in the Heimat system, priority was giving to retrieving all of the crystals needed to power the pulse cannons and all of the hand weapons used by the guards. Just then Olivia returned to the bridge along with Hatch, whose upper left arm was bandaged but otherwise was ok. Tavia was glad to see him back.

  “Sss. Captain, do you want ship invisible again?” Hatch asked.

  “No Hatch, we won the fight and there is no reason to be invisible. Rest up.”

  “Sss. Yes, Captain.” Hatch said and curled up at her station.

  “Captain, there is a message coming in from the Frigate,” Olivia reported.

  “Put it through.”

  “This is Captain Bogarde aboard the Hermine; I see you are sending over a boarding party, do you need any assistance. We have a few armed citizens aboard if you need us.”

  “This is Captain Alaya Slone of the scout vessel NR Mary Rose. We have neutralized the enemy. We are only going over to make sure none are left alive aboard and to salvage our kill. Do you need assistance repairing the engines on your corvette?”

  “Any help would be appreciated.”

  “Olivia, take a tech over to the corvette and see if you can get their engines going.”

  “Yes, Captain. I need to point out that my only human tech went to the enemy ship. I will have to take a serpent tech with me.”

  “All the better. She can protect you, in case of treachery. I also want you to note if that ship actually does have women and children aboard.”

  “I will take our boarding skiff as soon as I put in the tools I may need, Captain,” Olivia replied and called down to have the remaining tech join her and bring a universal tool kit. The serpent acknowledged and Olivia went to the hangar deck. For boarding actions the Mary Rose used boarding sleds. These were glorified rocket engines with handlebars and controls that allowed five riders to strad
dle the engine like a motorcycle. For more complex problems, such as the one at hand where tools were necessary, they carried one boarding skiff that could hold a maximum of ten people or serpents with room for cargo. It is this that Olivia was taking to the other ship, after first confirming that they had room in their hangar for it. This way Olivia and the tech would also not have to wear hard vacuum suits.

  As the Slones watched their daughter pilot the skiff over to the disabled ship, Alaya had Blue Scale open a channel to the frigate. “Captain Bogarde, this is Captain Alaya Slone. As you can see our skiff with the repair crew is on its way to the disabled corvette. Please be advised that we have a mixed crew of humans and aliens. There will be an alien tech arriving with our engineer. Let the corvette know that the alien will not harm them, despite its appearance. For reference, we call them serpents and they both understand and speak our language.”

  There was a longer pause than the distance required before a response came back. Alaya could only imagine what the crew of the frigate must have thought. “Captain Slone, this is Captain Bogarde, did I understand you correctly that there will be an alien working on the corvette?”

  “Yes you did. They look a bit like old earth dinosaurs and they are not the same aliens that attacked your base. Those are called Saltic and we are here to destroy as many of them as we can.”

  “Understood. I will alert the corvette. Your skiff still has close to 45 minutes before it reaches them. Also, to be clear, we had no idea the enemy ship was also crewed by aliens, we never saw them when they attacked our colony.”

  “Understood,” Alaya responded.

  Slone turned to his wife. “I am concerned the Saltic may send a harvester ship or other ships to check on the one we destroyed. I think we need to get the Tempestas and the Avenging Talon here ASAP.”

  “I agree. How do you want to do that?”

  Slone thought a minute. “What if we opened a wormhole to Border System 13 and sent a capsule through?”

  “I have been wondering if we could use that as a fast way to communicate. Let’s try it.” Alaya then turned to Blue Scale, who was in charge of communications in Olivia’s absence. She was also the one who would open the wormhole. “Blue, prepare a capsule to transmit the message Captain Slone gives you. Also charge the wormhole drive to open a wormhole to Border System 13.”

  “Sss. Yes Captain.

  “I also think we should send a message capsule to Nova Romae with video logs of all that has transpired both here and in the Brandenburg system, along with the Brandenburger CEO’s official request for help from anyone,” Alaya said to her husband.

  “Good thinking. Perhaps that would then sway the senate to get off their butts and forget about letting the corporations fail. I would hate for the Romani to stand alone against the Saltic.”

  The capsule was ready and Slone dictated his orders to have the Tempestas come to the Munich system as quickly as possible. Blue Scale reported that the charge time for the wormhole drive was 15 minutes for the distance to the system. That was the minimum charge needed for a wormhole jump. Alaya turned the ship so it faced away from any other vessels in the system. This was necessary since the wormhole would form about a hundred kilometers ahead of the ship and could pull in any ships within ten kilometers of the wormhole horizon. When the time was up, Blue Scale pushed a button and the space in front of the Mary Rose began to distort until it had formed the concentric rings of the wormhole. As soon as Blue Scale reported the wormhole was formed, Alaya ordered her to fire the capsule, which was propelled out of a missile tube and it quickly entered the wormhole and Blue Scale closed the hole.

  “Blue, I want you to take all of the video logs from the time we entered the Brandenburg system as well as the communication logs and package them for a message capsule. Charge the wormhole drive for a wormhole to the designated entry system to Nova Romae and send the capsule through.”

  “Sss. Yes, Captain. Charge time for that distance is just under two human hours.”

  As the capsule preps and launches were going on, the skiff carrying Olivia and her tech reached the stricken corvette. Olivia was directed to land in an open area of the tight hangar. She could see that some people were sleeping in makeshift shelters for some level of privacy. There was not much room to spare and she had the feeling that this ship was packed. She also noted that many of those in the hangar were women and children. She knew from what her parents told her about the corporations that women and children in corporate space were non-combatants. This was never the case among the Romani. After she shut down the engines, she left the cockpit and grabbed her tool belt, while her tech lifted the heavy tool box as if it was feather light. Olivia was the first to come out and she could tell that the welcoming committee was a bit surprised that she was so young. The Romani place a lot of responsibility on their young. If Olivia’s age surprised some, what came out of the skiff after her was a shock. The serpent tech came out carrying a tool case that three humans would have had to carry. Her name was Adder and she was an accomplished engineer. The captain of the corvette came over to meet her. When Olivia saw the Captain’s rank on the individual before her, she instinctively snapped to attention and saluted. No such thing took place with Adder. Like all serpents she did not salute humans. The captain returned the salute and said, “I am Captain Harmon Potts of the corvette Marne. I had assumed that you were a chief engineer, not an apprentice.”

  “My name is Olivia Slone and I am the chief engineer of the scout vessel NR Mary Rose. This is my assistant Adder,” Olivia indicated the serpent. “Now if you will lead us to the engine room, we will get you fixed up and on your way.”

  Olivia could tell the captain remained skeptical, but none the less led them to the engine room. As Olivia walked through the ship, she could see that it was packed to the gills with all ages of humans and she felt they were telling the truth about being refugees. Her age seemed to be an issue, but not as much as Adder’s appearance. She could tell that the serpent frightened them, especially the children. She thought this was a shame, since she knew the serpents were nothing but beneficial to the humans who were allied with the Romani. They had to go around many obstacles before they finally reached the engine room. She could see that the engineers were clueless about how to fix the engines since nothing was done to repair the damage.

  “Who is in charge here?” Olivia asked and an old man with a gray beard and bald head came forward.

  “May name is Rafe and I have been trying to keep the engines going, but the stress of running at full speed was too much for them.”

  “My name is Olivia Slone and I am the chief engineer aboard the scout vessel NR Mary Rose. Are you a ship’s engineer?”

  “Well, not exactly. I took care of the robotic farming machines. The captain thought I could handle the ship engines, but this is not at all like the automatics under the agro domes. I know I am out of my element here. Can you help?”

  “Let’s have a look,” Olivia said and then began the most interesting five hours of Olivia’s young life. The Marne was a true antique and her engines were manufactured over two centuries ago and not well maintained. An hour into the work, Alaya sent the human engineering tech over to help, after he came from the Saltic ship salvage mission. As the hours passed, some of the children came by to look at Adder and the serpent was careful to speak to them in the soothing way serpents do. Soon they had an entire audience of children. Just over five hours after they started, they were ready to try out the repair. Olivia had tweaked the engine and gave it some long overdue maintenance. Olivia went over to the com panel on the wall and pressed the button for the bridge. She remembered thinking this ship should be in a museum as she saw the old panel. “Captain Potts?”

  “This is Captain Potts.”

  “We are ready to test the repairs. They were a lot more extensive than I thought they would be.”

  “Yes Rafe told me,” Captain Potts said. “He actually speaks very highly of you and has no idea how one
so young can be so well versed in engineering.”

  “Thank you all for your confidence in me, but it will be poorly placed if these engines don’t work. Fire them up, Captain.”

  Captain Potts told the navigator to start the engines. The navigator pushed the right buttons to feed hydrogen into the propulsion units. Down in the engine room, Olivia could hear the gas flowing into the reaction chamber and suddenly the engines rumbled to life. Then, to Olivia’s relief, they began to purr. The corvette began to get underway. Olivia and her techs collected their tools and returned through the ship to their boarding skiff. Adder had a large entourage of children following her and talking with her. When the adults saw that their children were safe and the serpent actually could talk to them, they relaxed. Captain Potts was waiting for them in the hangar to personally thank Olivia and her team.

  “On behalf of my passengers and crew, I would like to thank you Chief Engineer Slone. Are you any relation to the Captains Slone I have been chatting with on the scout ship?”

  “They are my parents. Under the Romani, families stay together even on naval vessels. Our larger ships have nurseries and schools.”

  “That would be a thing to see. Please thank your parents for all the help you’ve given us. Your alien tech has certainly made a lot of friends among our children.”

  “We have lived with the serpents for three centuries and they are part of our government. We don’t see them as aliens. I must return to my ship now. You should be fine until you can get a major overhaul.”

  “I won’t hold you up then. Thank you again,” the captain saluted Olivia which she returned. She then entered the skiff and returned to the hangar of the Mary Rose.

  While Olivia was aboard the Marne the wormhole drive on the Mary Rose charged up and a second message capsule was sent on its way to Nova Romae. Slone only hoped that it would have beneficial results when it came to determine what the Senate would do. After landing, Olivia returned to the bridge to report to her parents.