Titan Encounter (20 page)

Through several
hymns Justin stood, eyes closed, and let the emotions of the crowd flow through
him in a way he had never before experienced. Finally, as the rotation of the
ship brought a new dawn he sat.

A man walked to
center stage and lifted his arms into the sunlight.

“Who is that?”
Justin asked.

Olham
shrugged. “There
are many people from other ships here today.” 

As the singing faded
the man on stage dropped his arms and looked out at the crowd. “
God,
has told us, through his Prophet, that when the light
drives out the darkness he will be there with us, but we will not see him. We
are also told that through some miracle the Prophet is here and that our
history begins now.” He shook his head. “I don’t claim to understand any of
that, but I know God’s word is true.  He told us we would be betrayed and
that we would make it here to this place.” He lifted his arms into the air,
“And I know that when this light fades his light will still shine on us.”

The singing
continued, but as Exodus pulled away from the Lepanto sun, the light waned as
well as the excitement of the crowd. 

Leonidas turned to Justin,
“It’s been good to see you again, but I’ve got to get back to the bridge. With
the help of Mara, we hope to test the FTL engines tomorrow.”  Others
departed with him.  Soon only
Olham
sat with
Justin in the skybox.

Justin stayed behind
with a growing sense of disappointment. So many had hoped for the return of the
prophet, but as the sun slipped ever more toward the stern of the ship. No one
miraculously appeared before the crowd. As the shutters closed, the crowd
slowly dispersed. 

Olham
leaned toward
Justin, “Will I see you tomorrow for your next lesson?”

Justin nodded and
followed him from the box. Together they reached the main floor and joined the
throng leaving the stadium. Around them people expressed their doubts and
questions. “Where is Justin?” “Where is the Prophet?” “If they do not appear is
it all a lie?” Their doubts seemed to infect him.
Where was the Prophet? Was
there a prophet? Is there a god?
He would have liked a miracle to dispel
his doubts. He turned to ask
Olham
a question, but
his teacher had disappeared in the multitude. Alone Justin walked through the
crowd.

Sluggishly, he
wandered toward the rail station and then to his empty room.  He didn’t
know why, but he felt the need to be with friends. There was no answer at Mara
and Naomi’s quarters. He had no idea where Naomi might be, but Mara should be
in the cocoon on the bridge.  He had never been there, but he was sure he
could find it. 

Usually civilians
were not admitted, but when he arrived at the bridge, the guard allowed him to
pass. Once inside he found Mara plugged into the cocoon and
Becca
hovering over her like a worried mother.

After greeting him
Becca
said, “Her vital signs are good, but is it normal for
pilots to sleep in the cocoon?”

Justin looked down
at Mara lying in the pod and nodded. From long experience, he knew that she was
analyzing lines of code and testing controls. “She isn’t really sleeping, just
busy.”

Moments later
Becca’s
eyes widened as the image of Mara appeared and
began discussing system specifications with Jon.

Justin grinned at
her astonishment. It was then that he noticed Naomi sitting at a table off to
the side of the bridge.

As he approached,
she looked up. “Did you see the Prophet?
God maybe?”

“Sarcasm does not
become you. What are you doing?”

“I may not believe
in any gods or prophets, but what I found while studying today convinced me
that the Titans…our people…are telling the truth.” With sad eyes she looked
silently off in the distance. After several moments she continued, “I decided
to help by drawing the various imperial ships for the
intel
people.”

He looked at her
crude drawings and pointed to his head, “Send me a mental image of the ship.”
She did and taking the slate she used, he began to sketch. “What did you find
that convinced you?”

She sighed and again
sadness filled her face.
“Drawings and a photo.”

Justin looked
confused.

“I found them in the
central archive. I copied them onto the slate back at my quarters, but I need
more time to understand them.” She pointed to Justin’s sketch, “Gun ports there
and there.”

“But these drawings
convinced you?”

She nodded.
“Particle cannon on the bow here.”

“I’d like to see the
drawings you found.”

“Give me a couple of
days to finish researching them.”

He agreed and handed
the slate to her. She typed in the class, top speed, duration, and other
details she could recall and then saved the file.

After more than an
hour of work she said, “This final class of ship was my home for the last
several years.”

Forming in his mind
was the image of long slender vessel wrapping around a central sphere. Numerous
nacelles indicated the stern of the craft.

“This is a Temple
class vessel. The
Nephilim
use these as command
ships.”  

“I get the sense
that it is huge.”

She nodded. 
“Not as vast as Exodus, but still enormous. 9,000 meters in length, much better
armed and fast.”

“A ship that large
and still fast?”

“The engines create
a gravitational vortex that distorts space-time. Over short distances, a few
million kilometers, travel is instantaneous.”

As he drew, Justin
struggled to imagine such a ship. Surfeit, the ship they had stolen from Galt,
was a mere 250 meters in length. Most CFS warships were less than a 1,000
meters. Titan warships appeared to be of similar size. The ship he was on might
be twice as long as a Temple ship, but Exodus had minimal weapons and, until
they got the engines fixed, it was slower than many sub-light pleasure craft.

“There are gun ports
every ten meters along the keel and
a large
particle
cannon at the bow.”  She waited for him to finish drawing then added, “The
ship has four sensor dishes built into the hull of the vessel, on the bow,
stern, port.
and
starboard.” She pointed to each spot.
“The dishes are very distinctive. They have the insignia of the Imperial Navy
above them and the emblem of the
Nephilim
painted on
the dome.”

“Dish?
Dome?  I’m
confused about what you mean.”

She concentrated and
the image of a huge sensor dish covered by a protective dome formed in his
mind.  “Four bulging eyes covered with an eyelid. 
Got
it.”
  He began to draw.  “I’ve heard of triple redundancy, but
quadruple?”

“It is not quite
redundant,
if one is destroyed it creates a blind spot.”

“So it has a
weakness.”

 “Every vessel
has a weakness. That is why they build different types, but I would not want to
fight this ship. The
Nephilim
spare no expense for
their protection.”

The two quickly
finished up and handed the pad to Leonidas. 

He looked at each
carefully and asked questions. “Nice drawings. Thank you. I’ll get the
intel
division to download the information into our
database.” He handed it to an aide. “The repair crew has brought your ship
alongside Exodus. They told me that some secondary systems still need repair
and the FTL drive hasn’t been fueled. You said the other day you won’t be
leaving,
do you still want the craft?”

Naomi touched his
hand.
You never know when you might need a ship.

A grin slowly spread
across Justin’s face. “I stole
it,
I might as well
keep it.”

Leonidas smiled.

Naomi let Justin
feel her satisfaction, then excused herself and left the bridge.

“I can work on the
electronics,” Justin said, “but I’m sure you don’t let just anyone
  handle
anti-matter, so, how do I get the ship
fueled?”

The admiral called
Jon over and explained the situation to him.

“I should be able to
do it tomorrow. We’re making fantastic progress.” He turned to Justin, “Mara
has been a great help. I’ll meet you at the shuttle port first thing in the
morning.”

Justin thanked them
both and walked over to where a holographic image of Mara talked with several
technicians. “How are you doing?”

“Great. I see that
Surfeit has been brought alongside Exodus.”

“How did you know
that? I thought you were just working on the FTL systems?”

“I got bored waiting
for the engines to initialize and spin up and wanted to see and hear what was
around me so I entered the sensor and
comm
systems.”

“What do they think
about that?” he said, gesturing toward the two technicians nearby.

“As long as I fix
their engines I don’t think they care what I do.”

Justin laughed. “I’m
going with Jon tomorrow to fuel Surfeit.”

The next morning Jon
wasn’t hard to find in the crowd. He was the only person with an armed guard.
The two very conspicuous men stood against the bulkhead with a large, red,
canister between them. As Justin approached, he noticed the biometric lock and
the stickers warning of explosion and death. Without delay, the three men
boarded the shuttle. The two friends spoke casually as they sat in the empty
passenger section with the fuel canister between. The guard parked himself in
the corner.  Immediately the pilot departed for the short trip to Surfeit.

When they arrived,
the guard remained on the transport. Jon took the fuel to the engine room.
Justin headed to the bridge. Upon entering he was caught short. Mara was there
talking to a technician. He had expected to find someone on the bridge, but
Mara? “What are you
…
Oh,” he said realizing she was
holo
projection.

Upon seeing Justin
the tech turned to Mara and said, “It’s been nice talking to you.” He then
turned to Justin, “You have the con.”

He nodded and the
man headed aft to the waiting shuttle.

“Did you spend the
night hooked up in the cocoon?”

“No,
Becca
wouldn’t let me, but we returned to the bridge early this
morning. I think I scared that guy when I appeared here about an hour ago. I
stayed, talked to him, and waited for you.”

They continued the
small talk as Justin began at one end of the bridge inspecting systems.
Occasionally they would pause as he pulled a panel, slid under a workstation,
or she needed to check something on the Exodus FTL drive. Almost an hour later,
Justin was on his back examining the environmental backup system.

“I’ve got to go,”
Mara said. “I’m spinning up the FTL engines for the test hop.”

“Good luck,” he said
with a grunt and slid deeper into the panel.

Moments later he
heard Mara’s voice came over the
comm
system, “Sound
general quarters.
Emergency FTL initialization.”

“What?” Justin asked
sliding out from under the workstation.

The computer voice
of Surfeit declared, “Collision imminent.”

Jon ran onto the
bridge, “Did I hear…?” He stared at the
holoview
.

Still on the deck,
Justin followed his gaze. Filling the screen was a bulging sensor eye painted
with the symbol of the
Nephilim
.

Justin dashed to the
captain’s chair and strapped himself in. 

Jon did the same at
a nearby workstation. “Why haven’t they shot at us?”

He silenced the
collision alarm. “We’re less than thirty meters from the dome. I imagine we
look like a big blur on their sensors. They’re probably wondering why they
can’t see anything off the bow.”

“It won’t take them
long to figure it out and start shooting at Exodus—and us.”

“Are we ready to
jump?”

Jon shook his head.
“I’d just started fueling the ship.”

Looking down at the
sensor console, Justin saw Titan ships blinking away and guns on the
Nephilim
ship attempting to lock on them.  The Exodus,
with Naomi and Mara on it, was still there.  He knew Mara would be working
frantically to jump the ship. “If we can’t get away, maybe we can buy Exodus
some time.” Initializing the sub-light engines he said, “Let’s ram this ship
into the sensor array, okay?”

Jon took a slow,
deep breath then nodded.  He started to pull the seat harness tight then
stopped. “I don’t want to be captured.”

Images of Titans
burned at the stake flashed through Justin’s mind.  “No. I don’t either.”
The engines roared to life. “I’ll give it everything I’ve got.”