Chroniech! (31 page)

A bluish cone indicating their possible course appeared on the screen. A yellow cone formed around the blue one indicating an area of lower probability. "Identify any pulsars within the projected course cones." Two blinking red lights appeared with an identification code next to each one. Stricklen slowly stood up and looked intently at the display. One of the red lights was near the center of the blue cone.

Sitting back down heavily in his command chair, Stricklen smiled slightly and said in a low voice, "Nice try — but I'm smarter than that." Then, in a much louder voice, "Battle stations! Helm — maintain present course. Minor course corrections are allowed but only if required to avoid a collision. XO to the bridge."

A moment later Doug Scarboro appeared on the bridge. He was dressed in shorts and sweating heavily. "I was working out in the gym," he explained. "What's going on?"

Stricklen pointed to the tactical display and asked, "See anything that bothers you?"

Doug scanned the image for a couple of seconds then let out a whistle. "Tricky son-of-a-bitches aren't they? What are you going to do?"

"We are going to stay on our present course. If they manage to drop us out of stardrive we'll just deal with them and be on our way. I'm tired of messing around with these people. As soon as we've passed this group we'll start making minor course changes twice a shift to keep them on their toes."

"Just keep us clear of any pulsars," Doug said. "The only ships we really need to be afraid of are the planetary assault ships and only if they are near a pulsar. We should be able to detect them long before they are a threat unless they happen to anticipate our course accurately enough to position one in our path with its stardrive shutdown. Even then, we might still have a chance. What is our ETA to this group?"

"Dragon, display current tactical." The display changed to one more suitable to the short term situation. "ETA about eight minutes. I doubt they've anticipated this move since we have always avoided contact in the past. Our next encounter might very well be different."

The minutes ticked by as the Dragon closed on the Chroniech ships. Zero hour arrived and the Alliance ship simply went through the loose formation. With the enemy ships behind them, Stricklen canceled battle stations and the crew returned to their normal routine.

19 - Balky Stardrive

For three more weeks the Komodo Dragon sped through Chroniech space without incident and without encountering any additional Chroniech ships. Ken attributed it to the random course changes he had ordered. It was preventing the Chroniech from being able to predict their future position and move ships in their path.

As the light years built up behind them the crew settled into a quiet routine. Falnath had disappeared into her quarters stating that she could use the time to catch up on her reading. Chess became a common past time. After quietly watching for a few days the Kyrra had the Dragon's computer instruct them in the rules of the game. Their phenomenal memory gave them a decided advantage. It didn't take long before everyone on the ship who played wanted to challenge them.

Stricklen was relaxing in the ship's mess hall, sipping on a rum, watching Norgoola and Wilks play a very close game. There was quite a crowd gathered around the two players but the room was quiet. As Norgoola reached out and pushed a pawn forward one square Stricklen felt a pair of familiar hands on his shoulders. "Who's winning?" Tashara whispered into his ear.

Stricklen's relationship with Tasha had grown slowly over several weeks. He had found himself spending more and more of his free time with her. It had started off innocently enough with two friends having lunch and doing other activities together but, over time, it had become something more.

Unknown to the captain, Tashara had been working her female magic on him a little bit at a time. Not long after reporting aboard the Dragon she had discovered that she had been attracted to him. At first, she tried to push such thoughts out of her mind but love has a way of transcending military protocol and common sense.

When she had finally realized that her feelings for the captain would not go away she decided to see if there was something she could do to see if the captain was also interested. Over time she learned that he did indeed entertain such thoughts and once the couple realized it they allowed the relationship to grow.

Being her commanding officer Ken took it slow. The crew had had a great time circulating all sorts of interesting rumors (some of them being true) about the couple. Eventually, after checking into the regulations, Ken and Tasha decided to become more open about their relationship. It was now common knowledge that the two were a couple.

Stricklen tilted his head back and the two officers lightly kissed. "I'm not sure," he replied returning his attention to the game. "Wilks holds a grand master rating but Norgoola won the first game they played together yesterday. This one looks close."

"I thought the Kyrra were non-competitive?"

"They are non-aggressive my dear," Stricklen corrected. "They enjoy a challenge, especially an intellectual one."

Wilks, the Dragon's top communications technician, moved a knight. There was a mutter of approval from the spectators. "Chess is pretty competitive," Tashara argued as she took a seat.

Stricklen turned around to face Tashara. "I don't think the Kyrra view chess as a competition. I think they see it as a mental challenge. Speaking of challenges, how's the crew holding up?"

"Quite well. There's a lot of worry about what is happening back home. There is also some anxiety concerning making contact with the Kyrra but overall I think the crew is holding up very well. You picked a good crew Ken."

Thirty minutes later Norgoola reached out and tipped his king over. The crowd sat in stunned silence for a few seconds then began clapping. Wilks reached across the table and extended his hand. By now the Kyrra had a good understanding of most Human customs and Norgoola met him half-way with his own hand. As the two master chess players shook hands Wilks said, "That has got to be one of the hardest games I have ever played — well done!"

A few days later, the chief engineer asked to see the captain. Stricklen, who was enjoying the luxury of reading a book, invited him up to his stateroom.

"Captain, we have a problem," Skip said after being admitted into the captain's cabin. "The stardrive is showing some strange readings. I've run all the diagnostics the Hess loaded into our computer but I still can't pin down what's wrong."

"Explain what you mean by ‘strange readings'," Stricklen asked. Then, before he could reply, Stricklen said, "Wait — let's get Norgoola here to listen to this." He had the bridge track down Norgoola and request that he come to the captain's cabin. A few minutes later he arrived.

"I understand you are familiar with the operation of your people's stardrive?" Stricklen asked after Norgoola had found himself a seat.

"My primary area of expertise is in field dynamics but I also know a considerable amount of information concerning the inner workings of our standard stardrives," Norgoola replied. "The Hess did update me on the workings of the stardrive we are now using. Is there a problem?"

Stricklen motioned for the engineer to proceed. "I think there is," he began, "I've started getting some strange readings from the matrix field flux shaping system. Specifically, there is a zero point zero one three percent variance in the harmonic feedback loop compared with the desired flux tilting from the dynamic compensator module. At first I thought… "

The rest of the conversation was complete and utter gibberish to Stricklen. He made a pretense of listening, but for the most part, his mind was elsewhere. At one point in the complex technical discussion, the engineer used the captain's computer terminal to display several graphs and a portion of the technical schematics for a section of the stardrive control system.

After ten minutes of highly technical conversation, Stricklen finally heard something he could understand and he did not like what he had just heard.

"Take the stardrive off-line? In Chroniech space? Are you both nuts? Can you put the reason in simple terms for me," he asked.

"Very simply," the engineer responded. "The drive stabilization system is experiencing a harmonic feedback which will only get worse. Eventually, the drive will shut itself down as certain parameters exceed their threshold values. We estimate this will happen in about twelve hours unless something is done to correct the problem."

"What is causing it?"

"We are not absolutely positive, but we believe it is a malfunctioning field sensor within the drive generator itself. It could also be a loose field emitter coil. We won't know for sure until the drive is opened and we can get access to the internals."

"I don't get it," Stricklen said trying to get a grasp of the problem. "I thought the Hess gave the drive a thorough going over before it was installed. How could it be broke?"

Skip let out a sigh. "The Hess stardrive has been very well maintained," he explained. "But, remember, it was built tens of thousands of years ago and hasn't been used since the Hess arrived on Shaular. I'm actually surprised that it has worked this well."

"How long to fix it?"

"About eight or nine hours. Norgoola and I should have everything set up to get to work in about four or five hours."

"You do realize that by taking the stardrive out of service you are also leaving us without a single means of defensive shielding."

"I realize that captain. But, there is nothing I can do about it."

After thinking about the situation for a moment Stricklen replied, "Very well. Get everything you need staged. I don't want to be dead in space and vulnerable for any longer than we have to. Let me know as soon as you are ready."

After Norgoola and the engineer had left, Stricklen called Scarboro and told him the bad news. "I figured things were going too well," Doug replied. "Let's just hope the Chroniech aren't close enough to cause us any problems."

Stricklen then made his way to the bridge. Once there, he ordered the navigator to alter course to take them as far away from all nearby star systems as possible. Hopefully, the Chroniech deep space network had some holes in it.

As soon as the word came that the technicians were ready, Stricklen sounded battle stations. Within minutes the Komodo Dragon was ready for the worst.

Ken activated the ship's general announcing system and said, "This is the captain. Our stardrive has experienced a failure which will force us to take it off-line. This will leave us without propulsion and without a defense shield. All hands will remain at battle stations until the repairs are complete.

"To minimize the possibility of detection by Chroniech vessels I will be setting condition dog zebra throughout the ship. We want to become as indistinguishable as possible from any other piece of floating space debris. All hands set condition dog zebra and report completion to the bridge."

The dog zebra setting was a holdover from the old wet navy method of designating the compartmentalization of a ship. Dog zebra indicated that the ship was to become as electromagnetically invisible as possible. All active scanners and communications arrays were secured. Half of the ship's fusion reactors were powered down to standby. Internal equipment that generated any sort of energy that could be radiated into space was shutdown.

Ken said a prayer, crossed his fingers, and then gave the order to drop to normal space and shutdown the stardrive. The tension level seemed to rise as soon as the characteristic dull thrumming of the stardrive had faded. A few minutes later, all sections had reported that condition dog zebra had been set.

* * * * *

"There has been an unexpected development regarding the Alliance warship in our space," the supreme commander of the Chroniech space defense command told the council as soon as the connection had been established.

"The council is assembled," the leader replied. "What has happened?"

Through the sophisticated link the commander caused a hologram to appear over the council room's table. A line indicating the course of the Komodo Dragon appeared. "As you are aware, we have been tracking the Alliance warship using our deep space monitoring network."

A blue flashing dot appeared close to where the plot of the Dragon's course ended. "The warship was last spotted by this monitoring station in sector 112." Six orange flashing dots appeared, "It should have been picked up by one of these monitors. Based upon the speed of the ship, which has been constant, this should have occurred 30 minutes ago. This has not happened."

"Enhance sector 112," the leader commanded and the computer obeyed. After scanning the display for a moment he continued, "Curious, there are no star systems nearby. Is it possible that the ship could have unknowingly slipped between the stations?"

"It is possible," the commander replied. "The stations are spaced far enough apart for this to happen and it has occurred during the ship's travel through our space. The stations were never designed for continuous coverage of all our space - that would require far to many than is possible to build."

"We are aware of this," the leader seemed annoyed. "Based upon the ship's past behavior then, we should expect it to be picked up by another station along its course. This is not unusual. I am a bit confused as to why you have asked to speak to the council regarding this matter."

One of the orange blinking stations turned red. "This station detected a very short drive wake at about the time it was expected to see the Alliance warship. The wake appeared as an extremely short blip at the station's extreme range. At first it was assumed to be noise but now we are not sure. The Alliance ship may have dropped out of stardrive somewhere in this area."

As the commander finished a ghostly green sphere appeared indicating the probable location of the Dragon. "Why would they do this?"

"I offer no explanation. So far nothing this ship has done has made any sense. Perhaps they have found what they came after. Perhaps they are waiting to see what we will do. Perhaps they've simply stopped for repairs. We have no way of knowing."