No Technology Is Invincible (The Death Prophecies-Book Four 4) (9 page)

“What do you mean?”

Gabe looked up, “Poul we were originally going to take our time to scout this galaxy but this incursion by the Builders changes things. We no longer have the luxury of taking our time.” Gabe looked at Gabby, “Do you have any suggestions on how to do this?”

“We have the lines of thousands of places in this galaxy where the recorder sent messages. If Poul is capable of going to those locations in a brief period of time, we can rush through them and run a quick scan of each of them.”

“Poul?”

“I can go to each of them in less than a couple of seconds but I suspect there will be a risk that we’ll be detected if we do it that way.”

Gabe exhaled and said, “Admiral Kuhn’s Weapons Officer was of the opinion that the Builders couldn’t see his ship but saw their path through the dark matter they were moving through. Will the Builders be able to see you moving through it, Poul?”

“I really don’t have a definitive answer but if I’m forced to take a guess, I don’t think they’ll see me moving through dark matter.”

Gabby’s eyes narrowed, “Why not?”

“Because of the difference in speed.”

Gabe looked up, “I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

“If an object is moving fast enough, it doesn’t disturb the medium it’s traveling through.” Gabe and Gabby were silent as Poul continued, “Are you aware that it has been recorded on Earth that during the high winds of a hurricane moving on shore, that broom straws have been blown through a wooden telephone pole without leaving a hole where they entered?”

Gabe tilted his head back, “What?”

The way they made the determination is that some of the straw stopped and was sticking out of the pole next to the building where the pole was standing. There were no holes on the side where the wind was blowing. I’ll be traveling so fast that I won’t disturb the dark matter as I move through it.” Gabe and Gabby were silent again and Poul went on, “There’s an easy way to find out.”

“How?”

“I’ll go to the site where the launch message was sent and see if any of their warships see me coming.”

Gabe looked at Gabby and said, “Get in your armor and activate it. We’ll stay in armor until I order otherwise.” Gabby pressed the red button on her command chair’s arm and she was immediately enclosed by her armor. Gabe said, “Gabby, you’re going to have to release your bun and stick your hair down the collar of your uniform.”

“I know. They showed me how to do it when I was fitted.”

She reached up and started removing the pins holding it up as Gabe activated his armor. He looked up as he put his helmet on and said, “Poul, send an active feed to our armor’s links and record everything that happens from this moment forward.”

“Your link is active. Gabby’s will be done once she takes her hair down.”

Gabe sighed, “Gabby, you are going to have to keep your hair down for the duration of this mission. We can’t wait for you to take it down in an emergency.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Gabe watched as Gabby activated her helmet and took a deep breath, “Poul, do you have the first location?”

“I do and I’ve determined that it’s the Builder World that Admiral Kuhn scanned. That must be where the main leader of the Builders is located.”

“Be prepared to get out of there if we’re detected.”

“Already have the escape location plotted.”

Gabe looked at Gabby, “Are you ready?”

“This will be my first experience coming into contact with an enemy.”

Gabe repeated, “Are you ready?” Gabby tightened the belts holding her in her chair, looked at Gabe, and nodded.

Gabe gave the order, “Poul, take us there.”

The spinning galaxy in the main monitor disappeared and a moment later, they saw a brilliant huge construction hanging in space five thousand miles in front of them. Gabe looked at Gabby, “Anything?”

Gabby’s face was white as she said, “The ships around the planet are not moving. I also don’t detect anything moving toward us from the outer system.”

Gabe nodded and said, “Continue passive scans and let me know if the level of their communications go up.” Gabby nodded and stared at her helmet’s faceplate. Gabe knew that Admiral Kuhn was twenty thousand miles out when he ran his active scan. This Builder Construct was enormous. Gabby, what do you see?”

“This is for all intents and purposes a planet. I know why they call themselves Builders. This is a clear example of what they’re capable of creating.”

“Dimensions?”

“It’s about four times the size of Jupiter’s largest moon. If the scans are accurate, more than a billion Builders live on it. There are fifty thousand warships holding position around it and they’re powered by fusion reactors.”

“How many reactors on each ship?”

“Six.”

“Weapons?”

“Three lines of blasters spaced equidistantly on the hull. Four missile ports.”

“Thruster diameter.”

“Twice the normal size for the vessel’s mass.”

Gabe blew out a breath, “That accounts for their high speed.”

“One of them has an active force field and the gamma rays hitting it indicate it is a force hundred field.”

Gabe looked at Gabby, “Are you sure about that?”

“The reading is clear, Sir. It might be at a reduced power but it is currently reading a hundred on the readout.”

Gabe looked up, “Poul, are you able to hear any of their transmissions?”

“I can but I’m not ready to decipher them. They’re communicating at an incredible speed and I have to slow them down before I can even start analyzing them.

“Sir, I’m detecting an extremely powerful field emanating from inside the planet.”

“What kind of field?”

Gabby looked up at him, “The blue communication field.” Gabe stared at her and she looked back at her panel. She looked up and said, “Poul, where is this world located in the galaxy?”

“It’s not a long distance from the core.”

Gabby looked back at her panel and forcefully blew out a breath. Gabe heard her do it and said, “What?”

“Sir, I think this is where the blue field is created. This entire structure was built here to house the machine that drives their communications. It’s centrally located in the galaxy and the field spreads out from here.”

“What has you bothered about that, Gabby?”

“Sir, this field can only move out into the galaxy at the speed of light. In order for it to fill this galaxy, it had to start being transmitted more than a hundred thousand years ago.” Gabe stared at her and started slowly shaking his head. This civilization was much older than mankind. Humans were living in caves when this construct began transmitting the blue field. Gabby looked back at her panel, “Communications inside the field move faster than light but the field is limited to the speed of light. Once the field spread out and filled this galaxy, then the Builders could communicate with all the different places they live instantly. However, they had to wait for the field to expand to the edges of the galaxy from here before the entire galaxy was covered by their communicators.”

Gabe looked at the huge construct hanging in space and knew this was a prime target. If it could be destroyed, the Builders would lose the capability of communicating with the far-flung worlds they controlled. He heard Poul say, “I have a warship moving in from the outer system.”

“Do we need to leave?”

“No, Admiral, it’s coming in on a different line to the planet.”

Gabe noticed that Gabby and Poul had reverted to using his rank to address him. “What can you determine about that ship?”

Gabby tilted her head, “This ship’s force field is at level 150. The ship I scanned at the planet must have had its power attenuated to a lower level.”

“Anything else?”

“There are multiple large array scanning antennas on its hull. They’re much larger than the ones we use. I suspect their scanning capability is much longer than ours.” Gabe stared at the giant glowing globe in the distance and thought about what to do next. Gabby looked up from her panel again and said, “I think I’ve found the location of this civilization’s leader on that world.”

“How did you make that determination?”

“Admiral, I have my computer tracking all the communications going to and from that construct and an above normal number of the ones being made are originating from a tall structure in the middle of the giant city on this side of the world.”

“Poul?”

“I’m recording the transmissions from that site and I’ve determined three of the terms they use in their language.”

“What are they?”

“I know the word for warship, construction, and location. The warship moving toward the planet was contacted multiple times and directed to a place to enter orbit. The multiple uses of those terms made it clear what the words they used meant. I learned the word for construct at the site of the launchers approach to the event horizon.”

Gabe nodded, “Have you heard anything else, Poul?”

“The being in that building has just sent a communication to a place that he called a warship construction location.” There was a pause and Gabe heard, “He’s actually contacting four different locations with that description.”

“Are you saying he’s contacting four ship building sites?”

“I think that’s what they are with my current understanding of their terminology.”

“Do you have a line on those communications?”

“I do.”

“Are they included in the ones that Captain Bartoli made at the event horizon?”

“No, they are not.”

“Continue to monitor that planet.”

Poul and Gabby said, “Yes, Sir,” at the same moment. Gabe stared at the Builder World and thought about what to do. He leaned back and closed his eyes and put himself in their place as he worked his way through the multiple options open to him. After thirty minutes, he opened his eyes and looked up, “Poul, how long would it take for you to jump the ship to one of the places we’ve got the line on, take a passive scan, and then jump away to the next site?”

“Between two and three seconds.”

Gabe looked at Gabby, “How many sites do we have in our database if you add those four new ship building sites to the ones you made at the event horizon?”

“Twelve hundred and eighty six, Sir.” Gabe’s eyes lowered as he thought about what to do next. Gabby watched him and finally said, “Sir, what are you planning?”

Gabe looked at her, “If you were in my place, what would you do?”

Gabby stared at him for a moment and then raised her helmet’s visor, took off her glasses, and focused on the question. After a few minutes she put her glasses back on and closed her visor, “Based on the question you previously asked, I think you intend to go to every one of those sites and make a passive scan.”

Gabe raised his index finger to his head and tipped an imaginary hat, “Very good! That’s exactly what I’m thinking about doing. Did you see anything else, Captain?”

Gabby stared at him and shook her head slightly, “I’m wondering why you’re going to go to all of them one after the other in quick succession when we have another nine days before we have to return.”

“Then you missed the second part of what I’m planning.”

“What did I miss, Sir?”

“I intend to attack and destroy those four ship building sites, if that is indeed what they are.”

Gabby’s face turned white inside her helmet, “I thought you said attacking the launchers wasn’t a good idea because it would warn them that we’re here and possibly prevent us from doing a good job of scouting this galaxy?”

“I did say that. However, I intend to take our ship and scan every site we’ve collected before I go after those four building sites. Once that’s done, we’ll attack.”

Gabby sighed and said, “Poul, what’s the chance we’ll be detected while we’re scanning more than a thousand locations?”

“Not bad; the Builders don’t know we’re here. My question is why would you allow them to know of our presence if you don’t want them to think about going to another black hole to attack Andromeda?”

“Where do you think the Builders will think we came from, Poul?”

There was a long moment of silence and Gabby broke it when she said, “They’ll think that we left some of our ships behind when we fled their galaxy after our attack here.”

Gabe smiled, “You came up with that determination much faster than I did. They don’t know the Prophet’s Eyes top speed and they’ll know that enough time hasn’t passed for a ship to arrive here from the closest galaxy to theirs. They’ll have to believe that any attack on those four sites had to be made by warships left behind. I think it will delay them going anywhere until they find the imaginary ships they think exist.”

Gabby leaned back in her chair, “We could still take our time scanning the sites we’ve collected and attack them at the end.”

“We no longer have the luxury of ten days now that they’ve made it through the black hole into Andromeda. We’ve got to get our information back to Fleet Operations before they start planning their strategy.” Gabe pressed some buttons on his panel and ran some calculations. He looked up, “Poul, if it takes three seconds to scan all of those sites, according to my calculations, it will take about sixty seven minutes to take a scan of all of them?”

“That’s accurate if we’re not detected doing it. If we are, we’ll have to make evasive maneuvers to complete the scans.”

Gabby looked up, “I thought you said the chance of us being detected is small?”

“I believe it is, but the chance does exist and one should always be prepared for things to go wrong.”

Gabe pursed his lips and then said, “You’re right. Here’s what we’ll do; we’ll start scanning all of the sites we’ve collected and the moment we’re detected, we will immediately jump to the first warship building site and fire a full salvo of missiles at it. We’ll then jump to the other three and fire on them in succession.”

“Admiral, you know the moment we’re detected that those four locations will immediately be defended, if they aren’t all ready.”

Gabe nodded, “We’ll scan them first and choose where you’ll go to launch our attacks.”

“Admiral, do you intend to use all of our missile tubes to fire on these structures?”