Chapter 8
Chapter 8
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Day 22
I had trouble sleeping.
I couldn't stop thinking about the actions of the squadron from the other day. Man, even though I was shocked, I think I always saw it coming. I would have hit the boiling point with them at some point, either due to the closeness in our ages, or the experience of some of them. But that didn't make it seem any less ugly.
It was bad enough for them to hate me here, on the ship, but out there? In combat, will they follow my orders, for better or for worse? They could die because of this grudge, and that would be horrible. That would not look good on my performance record. My first squadron, all dead inside a month of assignment.
The door to my quarters chimed. "Go away!" I said, but the doors opened anyway. Ardee entered, and he looked at me with those metal eyes. "Your presence is required in the conference room aboard the Maelstrom." I groaned. I knew that the robot wouldn't have disturbed me unless it was important, but I was still unwilling to get up.
I said, "Sure thing. Tell them I'll arrive shortly." The robot acknowledged and left. I sat up on my bed and felt a little better. At least robots wouldn't rebel against me.
* * *
When I reached the main conference room aboard the Carrier, I was faced with four people. Commander Paktu walked up to me and said, "Lieutenant Sjet, welcome. You of course know Admiral Somtaaw of the Maelstrom." The gray-haired man nodded at me. She continued, gesturing to the other two, a tall, Taiidan officer, and a teal-faced alien. A Corporate officer.
"This is General Seljuk of the Agamemnon, a Heavy Cruiser that just hypered over here…" I nodded, and shook his hand. I thought I saw a Taiidan ship in the area when I was ferried over from the Angel Base.
"…And this is Naros Shhar, the commanding officer of the Corporate taskforce in the Gemstone Nebula." She pulled up a chair and waved at it. "You may be seated." I looked around the table, and sat down. Admiral Somtaaw began, "Well, we are waiting for squadron heads from several other contingents to join us, but first let's get this started.
"We are gathered here to negotiate a truce. With the coming of the Kadeshi, we are seemingly undermanned to carry out a full-scale assault here. We have decided to pool our forces and join together to fight them off." I looked out the window, and saw several ships, Taiidan, Kushan, and Corporate, jumping in on our fleet at multiple vectors. "Lieutenant, your squadron was originally placed here to protect the fledgling Construction Yard from a possible," he smiled in Shhar's direction, "Corporation attack. However, your orders have been changed. First of all, for your bravery in bringing the Endeavor to save the fleet, you are being promoted to the rank of Captain." He tossed over an insignia pin, which I added to my collar, with a little pride. "We also thought commanding a squadron as a Captain would be helpful, considering…" I froze. Did he know?
"Well, anyway, now is not the time for a formal promotion, just for the record." I nodded, trying to keep from smiling. I wondered how the other delegates would look upon my eagerness. "Thank you, sir." The admiral merely nodded. "Now, on to important news. Your new orders are to remain in the Nebula until further notice. We need your pilots and your new ships to help fight against the Kadeshi.
"Now, we have something to discuss. General Seljuk has come up with an idea to defend our ships more properly. General?"
The Taiidan nodded and rose. He cleared his throat. "First of all, I would like to thank you all for being so hospitable to me on my arrival. I won't pretend that our two races are fully at peace, what with the Imperialists running around, but the Republic sees this mission as mutually beneficial.
"From our weapons design of the Defense Field Frigate, we may have found a way to create a dispersal field which will dissipate the Kadeshi laser weapons. In brief, shields."
He pulled out a remote control and pointed it at the holoprojector in the middle of the table. A rotating hologram of the Endeavor lit up, and he continued. "We extracted data from this Destroyer's flight recorder, and the results were promising. From analyzing its sensor logs, we have retrieved the frequency of the laser beams the Kadeshi fired. Stray isotopes on the hull of the ship after the attack …" Holograms of Swarmers flew over the Destroyer and fired at it, after which they disappeared and green indication lines pointed at the impact points, "…confirmed this information. Now, if we can create an energy field that functions on the same frequency," the Destroyer was now covered in a translucent blue sphere, which absorbed the lasers that the Swarmers now fired, "then we will be able to keep our ships relatively safe from enemy attacks."
He shrugged. "Unfortunately, this has yet to be tested. We were hoping that the labs aboard the new Yard could help us." He sat down, and looked at the Corporate officer. He stood up, a full three meters, and spoke in a rather accented tenor. "Promise of new technology notwithstanding, I have agreed to send over my entire taskforce to assist the Kushan. Within unity lies strength, does it not?" Admiral Somtaaw nodded. "Indeed it does."
He was about to elaborate, but at that moment four people entered the room. Two Kushan, a Taiidan, and a Corporate member, entered and sat down in the remaining seats. They didn't say anything, but the Admiral introduced them. "Lieutenant, honored guests, this is Commander Larkin of the Taiidan Bomber squadron Khel-ma, Third Prelate Ga of the Corporate fighter contingent, and Captains Liir Hra and Soban of Interceptor group Blade, and Defender group Boulder, respectively. This is Captain Jake Sjet of Angel Squadron." They nodded at me, and I responded respectfully. None of them seemed to be very active. Since it was early in the day, not even fear from a Kadeshi swarm made them alert.
He continued, "I wanted you all here to discuss the procedure for the retrofitting of shield generators on your fighters. Captain Sjet's Lance-class Interceptors are already equipped with auxiliary systems ports, but for the rest of you, the procedure will be trickier. Now, while we haven't yet produced a working prototype, we can extrapolate the energy consumption of such systems. Even with modifications to your power systems, we can expect a twenty percent decrease in top speed; we would have to direct energy from your thrusters to stabilize the shields." The Taiidan pilot said, "Insufficient. That will give us a terrible disadvantage over the speed of the Swarmers. We would be slaughtered."
One of the Kushan pilots, I think he was Soban, replied, "You should have thought of that before you decided to enter into the Bomber corps." Larkin glared at him. "It is irrelevant which ship you are in. We would still be at a disadvantage." Admiral Somtaaw interjected, "Well, that is what the shields are for. Now I…"
A beep emitted from somewhere. The Admiral searched himself, and fished out a communicator. He tapped it with his forefinger, and he said, "This is Admiral Somtaaw." A barely audible voice spoke back, and he nodded. "Very well, we will be right there."
He got up, and said, "I have just received a call from the head scientist in this facility. He has informed me that shield testing will begin in a few minutes. Let's head on over."
We all got up and began walking towards the lab. As the senior officers walked faster, I fell behind to be with the other pilots. I stroke up conversation, "So, uh, Larkin, how long have you been in the Armed Forces?" The Taiidan stared at me, his orange eyes burning into my face. "Just before the Battle for Hiigara. I had hoped to kill off some of you Exiles before you regained your Homeworld. Revenge for the slaughter of many of our forces during the Exodus.
I grimaced. The Taiidan were very good at propaganda. Their race was culpable of the deaths of 300 million on Kharak, innocents, and they convinced their pilots that we were savage nomads. Politics between our races were never easy, even between warriors. He continued, "I regret that you won, but there is little I can do about it." The predatory glint in his eyes were terrifying, I would keep an eye on him.
When we arrived at the lab, the pilot known as Liir Hra said "Well, let's see if we live or die." I frowned. "That is a bit morbid, isn't it?" He shook his head. "You're rather young to lead a squadron, Sjet." Boy, I hadn't thought of that before! "I was a veteran of the Great Nebula. I've seen these things in action, and they are willing to sacrifice many of their own to kill." I replied, "Things? They're the same race as us!" Even with that knowledge, it made nothing better. It made me feel that the Kushan were being, in a way, self-annihilated. Liir Hra countered, "When they gave up their sanity, they gave up their heritage."
We entered the room, where the lights were dimmed. A throng of scientists stood around a glass torus, where a diamond sphere sat underneath a laser beam projector. Three other lab-coat wearing men sat in front of a large console, only acknowledging our entrance by saying, "There are goggles in the left corner of the room. Put them on." We obeyed, putting on the transparisteel shields. We stared at the interesting display, and I heard one of the scientists in the distance say, "Alright, activate the shield emitters." With that, a blue, seemingly fluidic light curved its way around the shiny sphere, engulfing it in energy.
The head scientist said, "Good, good. We are adjusting its polarity to match that of the Kadeshi energy beams." The blue light flickered, going through the different colors of the visible and invisible spectrum, until it finally settled on a pleasing hue of cyan. Then, one of them said, "Good, power output efficiency is at thirty-two percent, and stabilizing." A few moments passed, during which the lights on the large laser cannon lit up. They then said, "Now, activate the laser, setting it to the Kadeshi frequency." An equally blue beam shot out, illuminating the room and forcing me to shield my eyes (thank god for the goggles.)
The shield bubble was stopping the beam before it hit the sphere, strongly lighting that section of the shield. The shield began emitting sparks, and creating a mini-lightning storm that danced along the surface of the sphere. The lights in the room flickered, as if straining from the energetic power. The scientist said, "Cut off the power!" Another replied, "I can't! The controls aren't responding!" The display grew evermore bright and violent. "Switch the breaker fuse off!" One scientist ran to one wall, and pulled open a console. Scanning the opened compartment, he found one black switch, and, just as the display reached a climactic fury, all the lights went off.
In the darkness, the head scientist said, "Well, we have noticed a highly unstable matrix in the energy emitters, and a power efficiency of eight percent." Damn, I thought. I felt around for the door, and opened it, bathing the room with a new light. As I left, I called out, "Continue with the research." Hopefully they will reach a breakthrough soon.