Chroniech! (32 page)

The leader ordered the computer to display all available ships in the area. A few hundred dots appeared. Many were unarmed civilian craft, some were freighters, and a very few were military warships. Based upon the firepower the enemy ship was known to possess they did not have enough ships in the area to mount an attack.

Patiently, the council and the commander waited while the leader considered the options available to him. He was known as a military genius and had been known to solve seemingly impossible problems. With no plan in mind, the leader began scanning the details of the nearest ships.

Suddenly, a plan began to form. It had a low probability of success but it was worth a shot. The leader carefully described what he had come up with. The council discussed it, agreed to the plan, and orders were sent out.

* * * * *

Stricklen nervously paced the control room for almost two hours. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and decided to go have a first-hand look at the work. The first thing he saw as he neared the massive stardrive was Norgoola half buried in the internals of the drive unit. An access panel had been removed and several pieces of equipment lay off to one side waiting to be reinstalled. A portable diagnostics console was positioned near the access panel and several cables snaked from it into the interior of the drive. Not wanting to impede their progress Stricklen was content to just watch.

Norgoola extracted himself from the access panel and handed a technician a small device stating its name. The technician carefully labeled it and put it with the others. Over the next forty minutes several more devices of varying size were removed, labeled, and stored.

Finally, Norgoola motioned for a technician to turn on the diagnostics console. Stricklen moved in a little closer to see what was happening. The screen of the console showed a complex series of waveforms and what appeared to be mathematical symbols.

"We have determined that one of the field emitter monitor modules has partially failed," Norgoola explained. "The analyzer will determine which one. Once the failed module has been identified, it will be replaced."

"Do we have spares?" Stricklen asked in a surprised tone.

Norgoola divided his attention between the analyzer and Ken as he replied. "The Hess provided us with a large assortment of repair parts for not only the stardrive but also for the other equipment which has been installed. Although the equipment that was installed is highly reliable, they are machines and are therefore subject to unexpected breakdown."

Stricklen had not known about the spare parts but he was relieved that the Hess had thought ahead and provided them.

The analyzer emitted a short beep and its display shifted. A schematic of the stardrive's internals appeared with a component marked in red. Skip looked at the results, grabbed a small tool and stuck half his body into the access port. He squirmed around for a couple minutes and then emerged with a very small black object in his hand. Norgoola handed him a new one and he dove once more back into the drive. A couple of minutes later, Skip pulled himself out and straightened his back with a loud grunt.

Norgoola adjusted some settings on the analyzer and once again the display showed that it was working. "The analyzer will verify that the new unit is working properly and determine what adjustments, if any, are required," he explained walking over to the captain. "Several remote manipulators have been attached to the phase transducers and modulator control emitters. These manipulators will allow the analyzer to automatically make the required adjustments.

"Because there are five separate interdependent adjustments to make, the process will require a fair amount of time. The analyzer must determine what effect each adjustment has had on the other parameters in order to keep the entire drive in alignment."

"I can't make any sense of these readings," Ken said motioning to the display. "Just how much of an adjustment are we talking about?"

"This stardrive is an order of magnitude more complex than your best drive system. The field coil alignments must be absolutely precise to an accuracy of at least two angstroms. The frequencies and phase relationship of the field emitters must be controllable to within one part in four trillion. Each time one parameter is adjusted it affects the alignment of the other four."

"I think I understand," Ken replied. "I'm not trying to rush you, but I will feel a lot better when this thing is operational again."

"Believe me skipper," Skip replied wiping a bit of grease off his hands, "I don't feel very good about having our only means of defense lying in peaces while we float dead in space in the middle of enemy territory. But, I'm not going to rush the reassembly either because that could prove to be a lethal mistake."

They stood in silence for a few moments watching the numbers dance on the face of the analyzer readout. "You must be very anxious to get back to your own people and away from us primitives," Stricklen said to Norgoola.

Ken still had a hard time reading Kyrra facial expressions, but he thought he noticed a look of surprise on Norgoola's face. "You are mistaken," Norgoola said after a moments reflection. "We have learned much about your people since our release from stasis. I have come to respect your race although there are many aspects about you I still do not understand.”

"You live in a hostile environment, yet the Alliance is proof that peace between vastly different cultures can be obtained. Your race is not primitive. It is only not as advanced as ours."

Motioning toward the disassembled stardrive, Norgoola continued, "This stardrive is far more advanced than any I have ever seen before. It was built by my people long after I had entered stasis. I understand it only because it is based on principles which I am very familiar with.”

"My people have been learning and advancing for thousands of years while I and the others with me have remained in stasis. We are glad we are returning to our own people, but we are also apprehensive because we may not understand them when we are reunited. We feel very much alone."

Stricklen looked at the Kyrra with a new sense of understanding. These five individuals were from a people far more advanced than his own yet, because they had been in stasis, the tables had been turned on them and their own people were now far more advanced than they were before they had entered stasis. They did not fit in with anyone and were truly alone. Stricklen suddenly felt very sorry for them.

Ken returned to the bridge where he impatiently waited for the word that the stardrive had been repaired. As each minute went by, he kept thinking that the next would bring the bad news that a Chroniech attack force was vectoring in.

Despite his fears, the sensitive instruments of the Komodo Dragon showed that space remained clear of enemy ships. This provided a small measure of comfort but Ken realized it was a false sense of comfort that the crew felt.

Because of the setting of dog-zebra, the active long-range detectors had been shutdown - the Dragon was effectively blind. Although this made it harder to detect his ship, it also prevented them from detecting anything beyond what could be detected with the passive instruments - like a blind man relying on his sense of touch, a very short-range sensory device.

Eventually, the chief engineer reported that all repairs had been completed and the stardrive was again operational. With a loud sigh of relief Stricklen ordered, "Engineering, secure from dog-zebra and commence power up of all systems."

The crew rushed to comply with the order and fifteen minutes later engineering reported that the ship was once again ready to resume course.

"Helm, engage stardrive and resume course," Stricklen ordered. "Stand-down from battle stations."

Ken could not believe their luck. They had been dead in space for eight hours and not one Chroniech ship had come within detector range. He turned the watch over to a junior officer and went to his stateroom to relax for the evening.

About an hour later, Stricklen decided he wanted a snack and headed for the mess hall. As he stepped out of his stateroom he felt a sickening lurch. His vision blurred for a split second and a wave of dizziness swept over him. He tried to reach out and hold onto the bulkhead for support but instead he fell forward.

On the way down, his head impacted the edge of a cabinet and he started to black out. As he struggled to regain consciousness he thought he heard the alarm klaxon sounding the call to battle stations. Something had caused them to suddenly drop out of stardrive very quickly.

Someone pulled Stricklen to his feet and shouted his name. He was barely aware of a voice in his head — it was the bridge trying to contact him through his earpiece. A face floated into his blurred tunnel vision and again shouted his name. The thick fog surrounding Ken's brain slowly lifted and he recognized the face as that of the ship's supply clerk.

Shaking his head, Stricklen finally managed to clear his vision and his mind. "What happened?" he asked, his words slurring a bit.

"I don't know sir. We dropped out of stardrive and went to battle stations. The bridge has been trying to get your attention for the last couple of minutes. You're bleeding, let me take you to sick bay."

Stricklen pressed his hand against his head where it hurt the most. When he pulled it away and looked at it, he saw that it was covered in blood. The entire right side of his head behind his ear was sticky. Wiping his hand on his pants he firmly said, "No! I'm fine now — thanks." Stricklen shrugged off the last bit of disorientation and took off at a run toward the bridge.

The marine guard must have heard him coming because he was holding the door open for him as he rounded the corner. Stricklen burst onto the bridge amidst utter chaos. "Out!" he commanded the junior officer who was occupying his chair. The officer looked up and seeing who it was immediately exited the command chair. He started to say something about the captain's injury but was waved off.

Stricklen's gaze quickly swept the entire control room while he was in the process of sitting down. His fingers flew over the command keys bringing up several screens of ship status.

A gravity mine had somehow been placed in their path. Its intense gravitational field had caused them to drop out of stardrive. The gravity mine had already been destroyed but the damage had been done. Stricklen knew it would take engineering a few minutes to stabilize the drive. Suddenly dropping out of stardrive was very hard on the sensitive components of the drive unit. Until then, they were vulnerable — and everybody knew that where there were gravity mines, there were warships.

"Multiple drive wakes detected!" came the expected report. "Nearest contact will arrive in just over one minute. Signature is Chroniech."

Piecing all the information together Stricklen quickly figured out what had happened. His conclusions were remarkably accurate. The Chroniech had apparently known that they had dropped out of stardrive and expected them to eventually resume their course. Since no ships had been detected Ken guessed the Chroniech had been deploying stealth probes all along their possible trajectory and it had been one of these probes that had found them.

Because the long range sensors had been taken off line the Dragon had not detected the probes. The probes, in turn, had also reported the fact back to the Chroniech that no long-range sensor fields had been detected.

Instead of attacking (which would have been disastrous for the Dragon since she had been without a defense shield during the repairs) the Chroniech had decided to lay a trap along their course. The Chroniech had no idea why the Dragon had stopped but they feared the incredible firepower it possessed. So, they had devised a plan that gave them time to gather their forces.

During his review of the various ships in the area the council leader had come across a freighter carrying military supplies. This particular freighter was loaded with thousands of gravity mines. The freighter quickly became a mine layer laying mines along a huge volume of space along the possible route the cruiser was expected to take.

They had done so at a distance beyond the Dragon's ability to detect the drive wakes of the ships gathering for the trap. Stricklen had been caught off-guard and he was not pleased with himself.

The tactical display showed at least eight incoming ships. The descriptors next to the enemy ships showed that they would be dealing with some pretty powerful warcraft. The first ship, a heavy cruiser, dropped out of stardrive dangerously close to them and immediately opened fire. The Kyrra-powered defense shield easily deflected the energy beams and was not seriously challenged.

The Komodo Dragon, however, did not remain silent. Two beams of energy leapt out from the Dragon's guns and struck the Chroniech's defense screen. The screen briefly deflected the attack but was no match for the Hess-built weapons. The enemy ship was soon speared clear through and exploded in a blinding flash.

Two more warships dropped out of stardrive and engaged. One of these was a huge battleship of a type which had not yet been seen by the Alliance. As the Dragon targeted the smaller vessel three more ships appeared and added their firepower to that of the other two. Once again, the two particle beam cannons opened fire and a second Chroniech ship was soon reduced to junk.

"Looks like they're trying to englobe us," Doug reported from CIC. Ken's tactical display showed the Chroniech ships moving in a random pattern around his ship. As he tried to make sense of what they were doing a third ship was destroyed and two more appeared. As the new arrivals added their firepower to that of the others the Dragon's defense screen began to show signs of being heavily loaded.

"Sledgehammers are charged — targeting the largest ship with all weapons — target locked — firing!"

Four bright balls of sparkling energy sped through space and struck the battleship's defense screen. At the same time, the Dragon's entire arsenal of projected energy weapons struck at the same location. The result was completely unexpected.

The enemy defense screen wavered and fought in vain to prevent the destructive beams from passing through. The energy of the sledgehammers were expended in breaking down the battleship's screen but the rest of the weapons made it through and touched bare metal. Instead of punching a hole in the ship, an enormous cloud of vapor was blasted into space.