Delphi Alliance

Delphi in Space

Book Five

Bob Blanton

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Should We Worry?

Chapter 2 Back to Normal

Chapter 3 Station Tour

Chapter 4 Humble Pie

Chapter 5 The Chinese Ambassador

Chapter 6 Christmas in Space, Not!

Chapter 7 Moving ADI

Chapter 8 Board Meeting – Jan 6th

Chapter 9 Good from Pain

Chapter 10 Space Manufacturing

Chapter 11 Damn Pirates

Chapter 12 Visitors

Chapter 13 Board Meeting – Feb 3rd

Chapter 14 More Pirates

Chapter 15 Whose Asteroid?

Chapter 16 Asteroid Mission II

Chapter 17 Waiting and Waiting

Chapter 18 What Is That?

Chapter 19 We Need a Plan

Chapter 20 The UN Speech

Chapter 21 The Buildup

Chapter 22 The Big Lie

Chapter 23 The Sendoff

Chapter 24 Is He Insane?

Chapter 25 Final Preparations

Chapter 26 Standoff

Chapter 27 First Engagement

Chapter 28 The Battle Begins

Chapter 29 Secret Weapon

Chapter 30 Coup de Grâce

Chapter 31 Oops!

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Delphi Publishing

Copyright © 2019 Robert D. Blanton

Cover by Momir Borocki

momir.borocki@gmail.com

All rights reserved.  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.  Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2019. 

This is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

https://www.facebook.com/StarshipSakira/

Chapter 1

Should We Worry?

“What’s the update on the asteroid?” Marc McCormack asked at the premeeting with his inner circle.

His brother Blake, his partner in MacKenzie Discoveries, who had been with him when he found the dormant alien starship off the coast of Hawaii; his daughter Catie, who came to visit and discovered their discovery; Samantha Newman, the company lawyer and Delphi’s Minister of Foreign Affairs; and Liz Farmer, a former Marine helicopter pilot and one of their security specialists, as well as Catie’s close friend, rounded out those present.

“NASA says it will intersect the Earth’s orbit in 3.5 years,” Catie said.

“That seems like plenty of time to deal with it,” Marc said.

“We are seeing some panic; the doomsayers are out in force,” Samantha said.  “Do you think we should tell the governments that we can take care of it?”

“I don’t want to expose the fact that we found the Sakira,” Marc said.  “We’re still maintaining the fiction that we’ve developed all this technology on our own.  It’s a stretch, but the truth is too far a jump for the establishment.”

“We can monitor the situation for now,” Blake said.  “If it gets out of hand, we can decide if we should step in.”

“ADI says there is only a five percent chance that it hits Earth,” Catie said, “and only an eight percent chance that it disturbs Earth’s orbit.”  ADI, Advanced Digital Intelligence, served as Sakira’s shipboard computer.

“Good, then we can wait,” Marc said.

“Masina, would you show the others in,” Marc asked his admin over the comm.

Masina showed the other members of the board into the boardroom.  Then she collected the dishes from the breakfast eaten by the inner circle, their excuse for meeting early, so it wouldn’t be too obvious they weren’t sharing everything with the rest of the board.

“Good morning, everyone,” Marc said as they entered the boardroom.  It had been four days since the Russians had tried to take over Delphi City.  “Kal, can you tell us what we’ve learned so far?”

“As I explained last week, the Russians were fishing off the edge of the city, bringing up yellowfin tuna.  Their Russian friends on the fishing boat had caught the tuna earlier.  They had gutted them and then inserted the weapons and grenades and sewed them back up.  A diver then swam the twelve miles to the city underwater, pulling the fish behind him.  He attached them to the hooks and let the Russians sitting on the edge pull them in,” reported Kal Kealoha, head of security for Delphi Nation.

“Why didn’t we pick that up?” Marc asked.

“It just looked like a school of fish to the sonar, so the system didn’t flag it.  We have modified the software so that whenever a school of fish enters the area, it alerts security.  We’ve also raised the sensitivity for metal detection.  I’d like to get some underwater drones that we can send out to verify the school is truly fish,” Kal said.

“Okay, talk with Catie, I’m sure she’ll love the challenge,” Marc said, giving his daughter a smile.

“Why didn’t they bring the arms in earlier?” Admiral Michaels asked.  The admiral had immigrated to Delphi after he ran afoul of the U.S. President and whoever was pushing the president to eliminate Delphi as a source of technology that would shift the balance of power away from energy companies.

“We probably would have detected the TNT and the gunpowder on our sensors,” Kal replied.  “We monitor all the recirculated air in the buildings, and they must have assumed we would detect any attempt to hide them outside.”

“So, what else are you changing?” Blake asked.

“First, we’re putting active scanners on the edge of the city.  They’ll check anything that comes over the side.  Second, we’re running various scenarios on how to defeat our measures.  I’m building a Zulu team to play the bad guys.  It will be a permanent team.  Their full-time job will be to defeat our security systems,” Kal said.

“Require them to attempt one infiltration per month,” Blake said.  “Embarrass them when they fail.  That’ll motivate them to work harder.”

“That’s the plan,” Kal said.  “I’d like to add a couple of engineers to the team.  They would only have to work with the team part-time.”

“That’s smart,” Blake said.  “Fred, do we have any engineers in the squadron?”

“Sure, I’ll check around and get back to Kal,” Fred said.  Fred was one of their pilots, and coordinated most of the production activity for MacKenzie Discoveries.

“Thanks,” Kal said.

“Admiral, I assume the fusion announcement had something to do with this,” Marc said.  Seven weeks before the Russian op occurred, Marc had announced that his company had created a sustainable fusion reaction.  Of course, already having one from the alien spaceship he’d discovered eighteen months ago had helped them perfect it long before Earth’s scientists could.

“I’m sure it affected the timing,” Admiral Michaels said.  “But their agents in Delphi City were in place over a week before the announcement.  And that means the planning was done months ago.  But I’m sure it is the same root cause, the threat to the value of their petroleum reserves.  The batteries and fuel cells are already impacting the price of oil; announcing a working fusion reactor would have raised the urgency of their plan.”

“What’s the story on the diver?” Marc asked.

“Still not talking; we’ve put him in the jail we threw together on the airport.  He and the Russians from the ship are enjoying each other’s company,” Kal said.

“What about the surviving commandos?” Blake asked.

“Dr. Metra informed me that she’s bringing the woman out of the medical coma today,” Kal said.  “She had some pretty serious injuries.  The guy had too much brain damage and didn’t make it.”

“Yeah, being next to a grenade when it goes off will do that to you,” Blake said.

“Anything else?” Marc asked.

◆ ◆ ◆

“How is our prisoner?” Marc asked.

“Cer McCormack, she is stable,” Dr. Metra said.  Marc was taken aback by her use of his last name, instead of the more familiar Cer Marc that everyone used.  Clearly, she was distraught that he had not allowed her to replace the prisoner’s lost leg.  Marc was not very sympathetic since the prisoner had lost the leg when the Russian infiltration team she was part of had thrown a grenade at the security detail and a group of teenagers.  The fact that the one throwing the grenade had been shot, letting the second grenade fall at her feet was all that had saved the teenagers from being killed.

“Can we talk to her?” Kal asked.

“Of course,” Dr. Metra said.

“She’s really pissed,” Kal said as Dr. Metra left without another word.

“She’ll get over it,” Marc said.  “I’m not ready to waste printer time on some Russian mercenary.”

They entered the patient’s room as the door unlocked automatically, recognizing Kal’s comm signal.  The patient, a woman, was sitting up in the bed with her eyes closed.  Her face was haggard, her skin still showed the burns that Dr. Metra was treating.  The doctor was regrowing the skin from the bottom layer upward using nanites to replace the tissue.  It took longer than grafting new skin on, but the result was better; the patient wouldn’t have any scarring, and there would be no risk of rejection.

“The doctor says you’re recovering well,” Marc said.

“Blin, why don’t you just shoot me,” the woman said.

“We don’t shoot prisoners,” Marc said, “even after they commit acts of terror.”

“Ach, that was that idiot, Svetlana,” the woman said.  “Her and her grenades, how stupid.  It only causes more problems.  What happened to the teenagers?”

“They are okay,” Kal said.  “One of my people caught the grenade in his helmet and fell on it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“What’s your name?” Kal asked.

“Marta.”

“So, Marta, who sent you, the FSB, the SVR?”

“I don’t know, I just follow orders,” Marta said.

“What service do you work for?” Kal asked.

“I am what you call mercenary,” Marta said.  “I was in army for ten years, but pay is not so good.  So I join mercenary team.”

“The same mercenaries that were in Crimea?” Marc asked.

“I was in Crimea,” Marta said.  “Pay was good.  Easy work.”

“The same job as here?”

“Yes, same job, but not so easy,” Marta said.  “And now, no pay and no leg.  Please just shoot me.  I have nothing to go back to.”

“You have family, don’t you?” Kal asked.

“What family?  I grow up in orphanage, join army, join mercenaries, nobody cares what happens to Marta,” she said.  “What happen to fishing boat?  You sink it?”

“No, we disabled their engines and power.  It took them two days to surrender,” Kal said.

“Demitri must be furious,” Marta said.  “He is not used to failure.  If you send me to him, he will kill me.  Then you no have blood on your hands.”

“He would kill you?  Even when you’re in a wheelchair?” Marc asked.

“Sure, he is prisoner because my team fail.  He not like being prisoner.  What will you do with his men?” Marta asked.

“We don’t know what to do with them,” Kal said.  “What will happen if we send them back to Russia?”

“Who knows? They might put them on trial for crimes, hang them,” Marta said.  “Or maybe make them heroes for trying to save Russians from mob.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“What should we do with her?” Marc asked Kal after they left the prisoner’s room.

“I don’t know,” Kal said.  “I’m sure she’s telling the truth about Demitri killing her.  We could keep her here; I don’t think she has any special allegiance to Russia.”

“Tell Dr. Metra to go ahead and fix her up; we can discuss that later,” Marc said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“See, I said we should just take that city,” the president said.  “It would have been a disaster if the Russians had succeeded.”

“Mr. President, if you were to order the taking of Delphi City without provocation, you would lose the election, and Congress would likely impeach you,” Walter Meadows, his chief of staff, said.

“They wouldn’t dare,” the president yelled.

“Your popularity is hovering at twenty percent, and even among your base, you’re only polling at fifty percent,” Meadows said.  “We have yet to recover from the Admiral Morris debacle.”

“Sir, right now, Delphi Nation has broad support in the UN.  We cannot afford to antagonize our allies,” Secretary of State Janet Palmero said.  “We need to bring Delphi to our side, or we’ll be allowing the Chinese to pull them into their sphere.”

“That’s right,” Bill Lassiter, the Director of the CIA, said.  “Besides, even if we seized Delphi City, we don’t have the resources to take their space station.”

“Without the city and that airport, we could starve them out,” the president said.

“I think another nation would give them landing rights,” Director Lassiter said, careful not to directly disagree with the president.  “Then we would really be at a disadvantage.  Right now, we are still the most powerful country in the world and have the largest economy.  We can weather the shock from their introduction of nuclear fusion power.”

“Right now, we’re the most powerful country in the world, because we are the only large economy that is energy independent.  We can apply our resources to better uses than importing energy,” the president said.

“We’re only ninety percent independent,” Secretary of Defense Barrows said.  “If we could build a few of those fusion reactors, we could become a net exporter.”

“If we could!” the president said.  “That idiot McCormack is bent on undermining our power!”

“I think he is focused on distributing economic wealth,” Director Lassiter said.

“The concentration of wealth is what makes us powerful,” the president snapped.  “Do you really think Americans want to live like Mexicans?  No, they like living in the wealthiest nation in the world.”

“I agree,” Meadows said.  “That means we have to find a way to benefit from the technology Delphi is introducing.  We need to find a way to get them to partner with us before someone else does.”

“Then you had better figure it out,” the president threatened.  “Or we’ll have no choice but to seize control.”

“Yes, sir!”

Chapter 2

Back to Normal

“Hey Squirt,” Blake said as he entered Marc’s condo on Delphi City.  “What are you doing?”  He walked to the sideboard and poured himself a couple of fingers of Marc’s scotch.  He waved to Marc and Samantha, who were preparing dinner in the kitchen.

“Working on the cargo distribution for the Oryxes for the week,” Catie said.  She was lying on the floor, using it as a surface for the image that her HUD was displaying for her.  “And you need to quit calling me squirt.”

Blake slid down onto the floor and leaned against the sofa.  He mussed Catie’s hair a bit as he settled in.  “That sounds boring.  Come on, you’re really avoiding helping with dinner.”

“That too,” Catie admitted, “but I’m really trying to figure this out.  We keep sending Oryxes up that are almost empty because we need them to take down the polyglass we’re manufacturing up there.”

“Typical problem,” Blake said.  “Since we have the material we need for the polyglass up there, our shipments are unbalanced.”

“Yes, but it’s weight, not volume, that’s the problem.  Our loads going up are mostly manufactured goods.  We don’t need that much yet, and it’s bulky, so it doesn’t overload the Oryx.  The polyglass is dense, so we hit the weight limit long before we fill an Oryx up.  We could balance the loads a lot better if we could carry more weight on the way down.”

“You can overload the Oryx a bit on the way down by managing the fuel load.  A full load of fuel is as much as the cargo capacity, and you don’t need that much on the way down,” Blake suggested.

“I already did that,” Catie said.  “We still have to send them down only thirty percent full.  And the problem is going to get worse when we start manufacturing the solar panels.”

“You just have to find more stuff to bring up,” Blake said.

“Then we’re going to run out of Oryxes,” Catie said.  “We could build more, but it doesn’t sound like a good solution.”

“That does seem to be a waste of resources,” Blake said.

“Could we make the runway longer?”

“It would help a little,” Blake said.  “You could land at a higher speed, so you’d have more loft for the weight, but nobody can execute a perfect glide every time.  Sooner or later your landing gear has to take the impact, and then all that extra weight will collapse it.”

“Could we beef up the landing gear?”

“It would help some, but then you’d just move the problem to the fuselage.  It has to support the landing gear, so then you beef it up.  Eventually, you’ve added so much weight that you’re defeating yourself,” Blake explained.  “The problem is, when you land you have to absorb the impact where the landing gear attaches.  You use support struts to help distribute the load, but there is a limit.”

“It would be nice if we could distribute the landing impact over the entire bottom of the Oryx,” Catie said.  “Then we would be able to carry a lot more weight.”

“It’s considered really bad form to land without extending your landing gear first,” Blake said.  “They generally call that a crash landing, even you would never land like that.”

Catie chewed on her lip for a bit, “But I have,” she said, her eyes danced with excitement.

“You have what?”

“Landed without extending the landing gear.”

“When . . . oh,” Blake said, his eyes going wide in recognition.

“Yeah, when I landed the Lynx on the water,” Catie said.  “Couldn’t we do the same with the Oryx?”

“Maybe, but we wouldn’t want it to sink.”

“But if it were on the water, it wouldn’t take much speed over the wings to keep it floating,” Catie said.  “Then we would just have to fly it like a boat up some ramp.”

Blake set his drink aside and linked into Catie’s comm so they could look at the same image.  He drew a line labeled water, then drew a ramp coming up out of the water at a slight angle, then leveling off.  “If we added a ramp like this to the airport, we could drive your floating Oryx up it, and then use the last five hundred meters to bring it to a stop.  With two thousand meters, there’s plenty of room to let it slow down and sink to the runway.”

“Yes, then we could load it up to . . . , ADI, how much weight can we load on an Oryx if we land on the water?” Catie asked.

“Cer Catie, you could load the Oryx to three hundred percent of takeoff weight,” ADI replied.

“That makes almost a full load of polyglass,” Catie said.  “Then we’d be able to balance the shipments, and they could handle all the polyglass and solar panels we can make.  How long will it take to add the ramp?”

“We can make the beams and pontoons quickly,” Blake said.  “It’s those damn plates that take so long.  We won’t need to put a subbasement on that part of the runway, so we only need half as many plates, but it’s still two thousand meters of plates.”

“Too bad you can’t extrude them,” Catie said, “then you could really make them fast.”

“Hmm,” Blake mused.  “Why can’t I extrude them?”

“You have all those holes to make,” Catie said.

“That’s not a problem,” Blake said.  “You just put the plugs on a conveyor belt and cycle them through.  It’s just that you have to expand the space so much to get enough plasma torches to speed things up, that you might as well just add two more lines.”

“Oh, we’re going to put the torches on a carousel when we do the solar panels.  You only need a little extra room that way.  At two-tenths of a second settling time, you get the extrusion rate up to ten millimeters per second.  We do a fast return on the idle torches, so it only takes like five extra ones to cover the whole width of the panel.”

Blake spent a few moments thinking it through.  “You know, that will work.  Hey, we solved both problems,” Blake said.  “We should collaborate more.  I’ll start working on the airport tomorrow, and you have time to help with dinner.”

“Shhh, I’ve got other things I can do,” Catie said.

“I heard that,” Marc called from the kitchen.  “Get in here.”

Catie slugged Blake in the shoulder as she got up and headed to the kitchen.

Chapter 3

Station Tour

“Hello, Leslie,” Samantha said as she greeted the reporter.  “I see you’ve come prepared for a spacewalk.”

“No way I would pass up the chance to walk in space,” Leslie said.  “This is my camerawoman, Becky Walsh.”  Samantha and Becky shook hands.

“Come this way,” Samantha said, “and I’ll introduce you to everyone else.”

“Just a second, Sister,” Leslie said.  She pulled Samantha into a hug.  “How are you doing?” she asked.  “Lots of excitement since you moved down here.”

“Yes, way more than when we were sorority sisters at Vassar,” Samantha said.  “But I’m getting used to it.”  She led Leslie and Becky over to the hangar.  “This is Catie, our pilot and tour guide for today, and of course the Princess of the Realm.”

“How do I greet you, Your Highness?” Leslie asked.

“A handshake will do,” Catie said.  “And please, just Catie.  This is my copilot, Elizabeth Farmer.”

“Call me Liz,” Liz said as she shook hands with Leslie.

“And Natalia Ortiz is our security for the day,” Samantha said, pointing to Natalia.

“She also runs the environmental systems on the station,” Catie said.

“Do a lot of people do double duty around here?” Leslie asked as she shook Natalia’s hand.

“Call me Nattie,” Natalia said.  “Nowadays, I only do the good gigs as security.  But most people in Delphi wear multiple hats.”

“Well, our ride awaits,” Samantha said.  She led them to the Lynx that was sitting just outside the hangar.

“Do we have to go to the big airport?” Leslie asked.

“No, this will take us all the way,” Catie said.

“Isn’t this one of your private jets?” Leslie asked.

“Yes, but this one is equipped with space engines,” Catie said.  “It’ll take us right up to the station, and it’s a lot more comfortable to ride in than the Oryxes we use to haul cargo up.”

“Welcome aboard,” the flight attendant greeted them as they walked onto the Lynx.

“This is Jennie Baker,” Samantha said.  “She used her seniority to get this flight.  She’s been with MacKenzie Discoveries since we set up shop down here in the Cook Islands.”

“Hello, Jennie,” Leslie said.  “So, you like going into space?”

“I try to get all the Lynx flights that take guests to the space station,” Jennie said.  “I have a boyfriend who works up there, so it doubles the time we can spend together.”

“Now that’s what I call a long-distance relationship,” Leslie said, getting a polite laugh all around.

“Everyone, please take your seats,” Jennie said.  “We’ll be taxiing shortly.”

“I’d like to sit up in the cockpit, if I may?” Leslie asked.

“There’s not enough room,” Catie said.  “But we can give you a comm so you can hear and see what’s going on and ask questions.  It’ll record the feed so you can edit what you want out of it.”

“That sounds like fun.  How do we do that?” Leslie asked.

Catie handed Leslie a comm/phone device that all Delphi citizens and MacKenzie employees used.  “This is a comm; it’ll patch you into Liz’s and my conversation, and Samantha’s,” Catie added after getting a look from Samantha.

“Like a conference call,” Leslie said.

“Correct.  And these are specs,” Catie said as she handed Leslie a pair of wraparound glasses.  “They will pair with your comm and give you sound, so you don’t need an earwig.  The comm will record everything you look at.  Together they’re like a HUD, a head-up display, which shows whatever you want to have quick access to.  You can put up a feed of what’s going on in the cockpit in the corner of the display, or you can set it so that it looks like you’re right in there.”

“Oh, let’s try it that way,” Leslie said.

“Okay, Nattie will set you up while we get ready to fly,” Catie said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Oh my, that thing is huge,” Leslie said as the Lynx approached the space station.  “What are the dimensions?”

“It is one hundred meters tall plus another thirty meters for the docking ring, that’s the section we’re approaching with the Oryxes docked to it,” Catie said.  “The hub is two hundred meters in diameter.  The first ring is five hundred meters; the second, seven hundred fifty; and the third, one thousand meters.”

“How many people live up here?” Leslie asked.

“Right now, we have about five hundred part-time residents,” Catie answered.

“Why only part-time?” Leslie asked.

“There’s not much entertainment, and a lot of people have significant others who work down in the city.  We don’t expect very many permanent residents until things are more established up here,” Samantha explained.

“How many people could live up here?” Leslie asked.

“This section of the station will eventually be able to support between fifteen to twenty thousand people.  Right now, it probably could accommodate one thousand.  The final number will depend on how many children we have and how much space gets used up by manufacturing and shops,” Catie said.

“What do you mean by this section?” Leslie asked.

“We can stack four of these together to make a larger station,” Catie said.  “We’ll have to see how much space we need and how many people want to live up here.”

“Okay, and why do you say it can only accommodate one thousand now?” Leslie asked.

“It’s a long way from being finished,” Catie said.  “We’ve only built out about twenty-five percent of the inner ring, none of the middle ring, and are just starting to build out the outer ring.”

“Why are you skipping the middle ring?” Leslie asked.

“We did the hub first, then the inner ring.  We attached them together and spun it up, so the ring would have the same gravity as Earth, that’s where the residents are living now.  We finished the second and third rings before we stopped the station and attached them.  We did that last month.  Now we’ve spun it up, but slower, so the outer ring has one Earth gravity.  That means the other two rings have less.  We want to get everyone moved from the inner ring to the outer ring as soon as possible since the inner ring now only has one half the gravity of Earth.”

“How long will it take to finish the station?” Leslie asked.

“Months,” Catie said.  “The shell was the easy part; it wasn’t very labor-intensive.  The interior work is a lot of labor.  We’re building out the infrastructure at a steady pace, and accelerating the apartments for our one thousand residents.”

“Leslie, how would you like to do the tour?” Samantha asked.

“Why don’t we do the hub thing first, then we can go to the outer ring to see how you’re doing the construction, and then maybe we can see one of the living units,” Leslie said.

It only took another ten minutes before the Lynx was docked at the station.  “Why don’t we do the spacewalk to start,” Catie suggested.  “We can enter the station via the big cargo door.  That way, you get the view of the vacuum manufacturing space as well as our jet manufacturing.”

Becky had brought an underwater enclosure for her camera so that she could use it in space.  The same principle applied; the camera was enclosed in its own environment, this time protected from vacuum instead of water.  Everyone got into their exosuit, the hard-shell part of the spacesuit.  They needed the hard shell to protect them from any small meteorites or from something tearing the shipsuits they were wearing.  The shipsuits provided the pressure on their bodies to allow them to avoid the bulky, pressurized spacesuits more commonly used by other countries.

“Nattie, why don’t you go through first, so you can catch Becky and Leslie when they come through and tie them onto your suit,” Catie said.

“We don’t get to fly around?” Leslie asked.

“You can have as much rope as you want,” Natalia said.  “We just don’t want to have to chase you down if you get confused.”

They all exited through the Lynx’s airlock.  Catie was the last one through; by the time she came out, Natalia was already reeling Leslie in.  “What happened?”

“Oh, she was having fun flying around, but she doesn’t know how to steer,” Natalia said.  “I let her try to figure it out on her own, but that’s not working.  I disengaged her thrusters.”

“How’s the camerawoman doing?” Catie asked.

“She’s taking lessons from Sam,” Natalia said.  “She seems to have it figured out.  They headed over to the cargo bay.”

“Wow, that was fun,” Leslie said as Natalia finished reeling her in.  “How do you steer these things?”

“Your exosuit has thrusters that are supposed to push you in the direction that you point your head and click the green icon,” Catie said.

“That’s what I thought,” Leslie said, “but when I tried to look around, it sent me in circles.”

“You must have it on auto-tracking,” Catie said.  “Give me a second . . . Yes, see the flashing red icon in your HUD?”

“Yes,” Leslie said.

“Focus on it and blink.  That will turn off the auto-tracking.  You’re only supposed to use that when you’re in a hurry and know exactly where you’re going,” Catie scolded.

“Oh, I thought it just meant that it would automatically take me where I wanted to go,” Leslie said.

“Can’t do that if it doesn’t know where you want to go,” Natalia muttered.

Catie reached out and punched Natalia on the shoulder, not that it would do much good.  Natalia weighed in at two hundred pounds, all of it muscle.

“Let’s go on inside the station,” Catie said as she helped Leslie reengage her suit’s thrusters.  After Catie had Leslie fixed up, she led her to the hub to join Samantha and Becky.

“Did you have fun flying?” Samantha asked.

“Yes, but I got confused about the controls and had to be rescued,” Leslie said.

“Been there,” Samantha replied.

“This is the inside of the docking ring,” Catie explained.  “It’s an extension to the hub that allows the various spacecraft to dock with the station.  It and the inside of the hub do not rotate with the rest of the station.  The station rotates around it like a big wheel, and this is the axle.

“All this space is for cargo handling,” Catie continued.  “There are big bins where we store the material or gases that we bring up to use in the manufacturing process.  You can see the seam here between the docking ring and the hub.”  Catie pointed at an area with a raised band around it.  “There is a big magnetic bearing in there that isolates the hub from the docking ring and allows the outer hub to rotate while the docking ring doesn’t so ships can dock.  Also, if some ship bumps the ring, it won’t transfer to the station.

“Now this is the actual hub.  Like I said earlier, it is one hundred meters tall with a diameter of two hundred meters.  It’s actually two big shells, one inside the other.  The outer shell rotates with the rest of the station, while the inner shell doesn’t rotate.  That creates the microgravity environment, and it’s where we do our manufacturing.  It’s one hundred eighty meters in diameter.”

“Why so big?” Leslie asked.

“The hub is for microgravity, and we want to maximize that space,” Catie said.  “We just left enough room between the two for the transition from microgravity to the gravity side.  There is a lot of low G manufacturing space on the outer hub we expect to use.  But we won’t know what we need it for until we’ve learned a lot more.”

“What do you manufacture in microgravity?” Leslie asked.

“We’re setting up an integrated circuit plant to make computer and memory chips, as well as some other electronic circuits.  We also manufacture our polyglass; think armor glass that weighs one fifth as much.  We expect to develop and discover other things that require microgravity to make.  This lower half of the hub is exposed to vacuum; all of the vacuum manufacturing space and labs are along the side here.  The space we’re in is just big enough to fit one of our Oryxes if we want to load it quickly right where the cargo is stored for shipping.  Usually, we just dock the Oryx at the docking ring and ferry the cargo out to it.”

“This is a lot of space,” Leslie said.

“Yes, we’re only using about ten percent of it right now,” Catie said, “but we expect it to be the first space that fills up.  Above us is the enclosed microgravity manufacturing plant that we manufacture the Oryxes in.”

“I thought you made those in Delphi City,” Leslie said.

“We did, but we can do a better job if we manufacture them up here,” Catie said.  “The hulls of the space station and our spaceplanes absorb energy more efficiently if we can integrate a superconductor matrix in them, and we can only do that in microgravity.  That helps on reentry for the spaceplanes.  For the space station, we collect all that energy to power everything up here.”

“I thought you would be using one of your fusion reactors up here,” Leslie said.

“They’re too big,” Catie said.  “And we don’t need one.  Right now, we have to beam energy off of the station because we don’t use enough.”

“Why do you have to beam it off, and how do you do that?” Leslie asked.

“The energy has to go somewhere,” Catie said.  “All the solar energy that hits the station is absorbed and converted to electricity.  We store as much as we can, but anything we don’t use or can’t store gets converted into this big plasma beam at the top of the hub.  That shoots off into space where the energy dissipates into the deep dark.  We can make the hull less absorptive by managing the superconductor array that is embedded in it.  However, we don’t want the hull to get over fifty degrees C, so if we’re still not using enough energy, we resort to the plasma beam to get rid of it.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Leslie asked.

“We use a wide-angle beam, so the energy disperses quickly,” Catie said.  “And we make sure there isn’t anything in the beam’s path.”

“Let’s go through this airlock, and we’ll show you an Oryx being manufactured,” Catie continued.  “Then, we’ll give you a tour of a couple of labs before we go into the gravity section.”

Leslie had Becky take lots of video of the Oryx being manufactured.  She loved the way the plasma torch followed the form and sprayed its layer of polysteel onto the foam base.  She carefully documented that they were using a modified version of the C17 electronics, ordered from the American manufacturer.  After failing to get Catie to divulge any specifics about the engines, she agreed it was time to move on to the rings.

“Can we go to the third ring?” Leslie asked.  “I’d like to show my viewers what it takes to build a space station.”

“Sure,” Samantha said.  “This way, and we’ll go to the gravity section; then we can take an elevator to the outer ring.”

Natalia led them through the airlock and into the lab section.  “These are the microgravity labs and manufacturing spaces for smaller items,” Natalia said, laughing at the thought that pretty much everything was smaller than an Oryx.

“Can I see the manufacturing facility for your integrated circuits?” Leslie asked.

“Sure, we can show it to you now, or on our way back to the Lynx.  It’s all the way down at the other end,” Samantha explained.

“On the way back will be fine,” Leslie said.

“Okay, do you want to ride the zipline down, or take an elevator?” Samantha asked Leslie.  Right then, one of the workers walked by, grabbed a line, and pushed off the wall.  The line carried him down and away, using the momentum of his push to speed him along.  He landed on the rotating floor of the hub and barely changed speeds as he started walking.  He turned and moved to the doorway on the side of the long hallway he’d jumped into.

“I think an elevator would be nice,” Leslie gulped.

“You’re lucky we installed one then,” Samantha said.

“You mean you’ve done that leap?” Leslie asked.

“Yes, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Samantha said.  “Some people actually show off and do it without the line.”

“Crazy people, you mean,” Leslie said.

“Young people,” Samantha countered.

“How does this elevator work?” Leslie asked.  Becky kept the camera rolling, but nodded her head aggressively to show she would like to know also.

“There are elevator slots along that wall,” Catie said, pointing to the wall opposite the one the worker had gone into.  “They’re curved so that the slot accelerates the elevator car gradually as it goes down.  When you get to the bottom, you’re going the same speed as the floor, so you don’t stumble.  At that point things should feel normal.”

“If you say so,” Leslie said.  “You have tested this, right?”

“Hundreds of times,” Catie said.

“How do you get back up?” Leslie asked.

“The elevator slides over beneath a slot that curves the opposite way.  You get pulled up, and the slot lets you slow down as you rise.  By the time you get to the top, it’s not moving, and the elevator pops out.  There’s a small jolt at the start and stop, but not much worse than you get in some skyscrapers,” Catie said.  “It’s all magnetically coupled, so no wires to get tangled.”

“That was easy,” Leslie said as the elevator came to a stop.  “And it’s nice to be able to tell which way is up.”

“This is twenty percent of Earth’s gravity,” Catie said.  “You need to be careful, it’s a bit awkward walking.  You kind of bounce a bit.  So, take small steps.  We’re only a little way from the ring elevator.”

Catie led them down the hallway to another set of elevators, “These only go to the rings, so only four stops, this one and one for each ring.”

“Okay, so what should we expect?” Leslie asked.

“You’re going to feel heavier as we move outward.  When we stop, you’ll feel the same as you do on Earth,” Catie said.

“No funny stepping or bouncing?” Leslie asked.

“There is a difference, but you probably won’t notice.  It’s really only apparent when you’re running,” Catie said.  “Here we go.”  Catie pushed the button, and the elevator took them down to the third ring.

“Well, that’s the fastest I’ve ever gained weight,” Leslie said as the elevator came to a stop.

“Don’t worry, you’ll lose it all on the way back up to the hub,” Samantha said.

“Be careful,” Catie said as they stepped from the elevator.  “We have to take a few steps down to the floor.  This will be the subbasement where all the utilities will be.  There’s no real floor, just the inside of the station’s hull.  Step over this beam, and we can take the golf cart to where the guys are working.”

“This place is huge,” Leslie said as she followed Catie.  “Why is it so empty?”

“We’re just now putting in the hull reinforcing beams,” Catie explained.  “Once they finish that, they’ll start putting the frame and decking in for the floors.”

“How many floors is it going to have?” Leslie asked.

“It will have six and a half floors plus the subbasement,” Catie answered.  “We say the top floor is half a floor because only half of it is really usable due to the hull curvature.”

“Just seven floors?” Leslie wondered as she looked up at the ceiling.

“It’s thirty meters to the ceiling; the floors are four meters each, but that includes the subfloor where the utilities run, so when it’s finished you have ten-foot ceilings in the living space,” Catie explained.

“Wow, that’s better than my apartment,” Becky said.

“Because people will already feel claustrophobic up here, we’re making the space big, so they’ll feel less confined.  It should lead to better mental health,” Samantha explained.

“Hold on, we have to go over a beam,” Catie said.  Then she drove the golf cart up and over a beam using a set of ramps the workers had placed for that purpose.  Then a few meters farther along, she drove over a second beam.

“That was fun,” Samantha said.  “A little roller coaster ride thrown in for free.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Catie said.  “We have two more sets before we get there.”

Soon they came to the construction area.  Two people were working on some scaffolding while a plasma torch device was crawling along the floor, extruding a beam.

Samantha stepped out of the cart and walked over to the crew while Catie and Natalia helped Becky and Leslie get out.

“I think you’ve already told me, but how wide is this thing?” Leslie asked.

“It’s fifty meters wide,” Catie said.  “It’s an ellipsoid, which gives it a lot of strength, but causes a few problems since everything is curved.”

Samantha came back, leading one of the construction workers.  “Everybody, this is Nolan Bishop, the foreman for the construction going on here.”

“Hello, ladies,” Nolan said.  “A safety tip before we start: your specs will automatically adjust to the plasma beam’s brightness to protect your eyes.  But be careful, they take some time to adjust back, so you’ll be blind for a second when you turn away from the beam.”

“Thank you,” Leslie said as she shook Nolan’s hand.  “Can you explain to everyone what you’re doing here?”

“Sure can,” Nolan said.  “Essentially, we’re putting in the station’s ribs.  The hull is extremely strong, but we’re adding these ribs to strengthen it and to provide something to hook onto when we start building the units.”

“Why are these spaced so much closer than the last ones we went over?” Leslie asked.

“Let me explain how we did all this, then it will make sense,” Nolan said.  “First thing we did was make the hull, it’s a huge donut.  It was made in four sections at the same time.  When one section was finishing, it kinda joined right into the other section, so we had a complete donut when it was all over.”

“I see,” Leslie said.  “That must have been quite an undertaking.”

“Yep, it took a whole month to make the entire donut,” Nolan said.

“It only took one month to make this whole thing?  That’s unbelievable!” Leslie exclaimed.

“It kinda is, isn’t it?” Nolan said.  “Some real smart person figured out we could go faster if we extruded it.  Made everything we’re doing go quicker.” Nolan looked at Catie as he said that since he knew that extruding the hull had been her idea.

“Extrude?” Leslie questioned.

“Here, let me show you,” Nolan said.  “This here machine is extruding the beam; it’s a bit backward since the machine is moving instead of the beam, but it’s the same thing.  It forms a little bit of the beam, then moves along, forming more as it goes; the form only allows the polysteel to be deposited inside it, so you get the beam coming out all finished.  We have to put these disks into the machine so that the beam has holes in it; that actually makes the beam stronger, and uses less material.  This machine is going to crawl along the hull here, following these frames put here to guide it.  It’ll keep going up following the curve of the hull until it gets to that beam on the roof way up there.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Leslie said.  “We can’t see it from here.”

“Oh, it’s there alright,” Nolan said.  “That was a lot of work to put that one in.  We had to build scaffolding all along the way.  And we had to stay in front of that little extrusion bot.  The team that made the bot stop had to buy dinner for the entire crew, besides having to do all the work to get the bot started up again.”

“Does that mean it never stopped?” Leslie asked.

“Darn right it never stopped,” Nolan said.  “We got to practice on the one we put on the floor here first, so we knew what to do.  We just had to do it upside down and thirty meters over our heads,” he said with a laugh.

“How long did that take?” Leslie asked.

“It took one day to set up, and then we had twenty-one days of that little bot chasing us around the ring before it joined the start of the beam.  Then we had to do it again up there,” Nolan said.  “It sure was exciting.”

“Again, only twenty-one days?” Leslie asked.

“We had crews working twenty-four hours a day,” Nolan said.  “Had to keep that bot fed and running the whole time.  It seems like a long time when you’re doing it.  That thing crawls along real slow.  Of course, once it got going, we got right to work behind it, putting up the scaffolding for the ceiling beam.  And once we had the ceiling beam going, we went right behind it, taking down the scaffolding.  And we even put in those ribs you saw.  One set at each of the spokes that attach the ring to the station, which is what you passed over on the way here.”

“That does sound like a lot of work,” Leslie said.  “So, you were extruding the ceiling beam while you were still extruding the floor beam?”

“Yep, and by the end, we were adding ribs while they were both still being formed,” Nolan said.  He was obviously proud of the work his team had done.  “We got the whole thing done in one month, and I won a bet with the crew; they had to buy me a steak dinner.”

“Well, I would have thought your boss would have bought you a steak dinner,” Leslie said.

“Oh, he buys me a steak dinner every week,” Nolan said.  “Yep, the whole crew gets a steak dinner any week we go without an accident.”

“Doesn’t that encourage you guys to cover up any accidents?” Leslie asked.

“Nope, can’t do it,” Nolan said, pointing to his specs.  “These record everything, so the crew focuses on being extra careful, don’t we, Val?” he asked the second member of his crew as she walked over to the group.

“We sure do,” she said.  “We like those steak dinners, and the boss buys real nice wines to go with them, too.”

“Hello,” Leslie said.  “How long have you been working with the crew here?”

“I started back at the beginning with Nolan,” Val said.  “We worked on the city, and then the airport.  Couldn’t believe it when they asked us if we were willing to work up here in space.”

“After you finish this, what’s next?” Leslie asked.

“Well, once we finish putting in all these ribs, we’ll come back and put the decking down on top of them.  Then we’ll just start building like you would on the ground.  We try to do everything balanced, so whatever we do on one side of the ring, we have to do on the opposite side,” Nolan said.  “Right now, there’s a team working directly opposite us doing the same thing we are.  That way, the station is always balanced.”

“I think we’ve learned enough about construction,” Leslie said.  “Now, you were going to show us one of the completed units where people live.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“This is Liz’s and my cabin,” Catie said as they arrived at their door.

“You share a cabin?” Leslie asked.

“Yes, we require everyone to share a cabin,” Catie replied.

“Even the Heir to the Realm?” Leslie joked.

“I tried that on Daddy,” Catie said as she opened the door and motioned for everyone to enter.  “He told me we have to set an example.”

“So even he shares a cabin?” Leslie asked.

“Yes, no exceptions,” Catie said.  “Of course, right now with people working both here and in Delphi City, you get the cabin to yourself a lot of the time.”

“This is a nice apartment,” Leslie said.  “A nice sectional sofa, a huge TV display.  And I assume those are also displays?” Leslie asked as she pointed to the two window-looking displays.

“Of course,” Catie said.  “That one shows the beach on Manuae, and the other one shows the reef that is just offshore.”

“Okay, so this is where you hang out,” Leslie said.  “And this would be your dining area, a simple table and four chairs.  My, that is an amazing kitchen.  Can you describe the appliances?”

“We have an induction cooktop; we discourage any fire hazards, so only induction cooking.  This is a GE Advantium oven; it’s a combo microwave, halogen, and convection oven.  And that is a regular oven.  We have a warming drawer, a refrigerator, and a separate freezer; double sinks for washing up, and a small dishwasher,” Catie explained.

“Do you cook?” Leslie asked.

“I’m learning.  Liz is a good cook, and between her, my mother, and Sam, I’m learning,” Catie said.  “But honestly, we eat out most of the time.”

“Why aren’t you living with your father?” Leslie asked.

“He’s right next door, so I pretty much am,” Catie said.

“Convenient,” Leslie said.  “Can you describe the floor?”

“It’s polysteel covered with a very thin layer of non-slip tile.  We make the tile up here,” Catie said.

“What about this rug?” Leslie asked.

“That is a Persian carpet,” Catie said.  “I brought it up on one of the early flights.  Back then, we were making so many flights up that it was almost free to ship the weight up here.”

“This is my bedroom,” Catie said as she opened a door on one side of the dining area.

“Where do you sleep?” Leslie asked.

“Oh, all the units have Murphy Beds,” Catie said.  “The table here in the middle collapses down to the floor, and the bed folds down—a more efficient use of space.  That’s my desk along the wall.  I don’t keep a separate office up here like I have in Delphi City.”

“Why would you need an office?” Leslie asked.  “If I recall right, you’re fourteen.”

“Yes, but I have school work, I do lots of design projects for MacKenzie Discoveries, and I have meetings with the people who are working on projects that I manage,” Catie said.  “We have a shared office near Daddy’s office.  You can just reserve it when you want to hold a meeting.”

“Your bedroom is nice; it has a private bath.  A Persian rug for the floor in here, as well,” Leslie said.  “I assume that’s Ms. Farmer’s room across the dining room.”

“Yes,” Catie said.

“A powder room, laundry, and what’s this?” Leslie asked.

“Storage,” Catie said.

Leslie opened the door to the storage; it was actually a flex room, but Catie had commandeered it for storage.  “What are these?” Leslie asked.

“Persian rugs,” Catie said.  “I figured I might as well bring up as many as I could when the cargo was almost free; that way, I can give them to my friends who can’t afford the weight allowance.”

“You’re going to have lots of friends,” Leslie said.  “So, how big is this cabin?”

“Most of the cabins are two-bedroom units, and they are one hundred four square meters, that’s a bit over eleven hundred square feet,” Catie said.  “The three-bedroom units are one hundred sixty square meters or seventeen hundred square feet.”

“This one is bigger than my apartment,” Becky said.

“We spend a lot of time in our cabins,” Catie said.  “We don’t want people to get claustrophobic.”

“I guess not.  You have nice tall ceilings,” Leslie said.

“Yes, they’re three meters, that’s just under ten feet,” Catie said.

“Okay, I guess we’re done here,” Leslie said.  “A quick stop at the manufacturing facilities on our way out.”

“Sure, then we’ll take you home,” Catie said.

Chapter 4

Humble Pie

“Catie, we’ve got a new class of pilots moving from simulator to real Foxes.  Are you coming to the ceremony?” Blake asked.

“You want me to?” Catie answered.

“We’ve got an especially needy candidate in this class,” Blake said.  “I think he could use your help.”

“When is it?”

“Tomorrow morning at oh-nine-hundred, airport flight hangar as usual.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

“Wear your flight suit,” Blake said.

“He’s that needy?” Catie asked.

“He sure is,” Blake said.  “I think only you can help.”

“I’ll be there.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next morning Catie slid into the conference room in the hangar.  She was late, but she’d heard all the rah-rah speeches before.  Besides, she knew her part didn’t come until the end.  Blake was in front of the class giving his speech.

“This class has bitched more about the simulators than any class we’ve held,” Blake said.  “Simulators are the way we preserve our pilots and our planes while you learn not to crash them.”

There was a polite chuckle from most of the pilots, and some grumbling from the rear group.

“Now, one would think that with so much grumbling about the simulators, you guys would have better scores on them.  But the best in your class is only ninety-five percent.  And in simulated pilot-to-pilot encounters, your best-in-class score is only ninety percent,” Blake said.

“Who’s done better,” someone in the back of the class shouted.  Catie assumed it was the one who needed a little help.

“I can think of two off the top of my head,” Blake said.  “In pilot-to-simulator combat, I’ve only lost once.  And in pilot-to-pilot simulator combat, I’ve only lost to one pilot.”

“See, nobody’s perfect,” the voice in the back shouted out again.

“But someone is,” Blake shot back.  “The pilot I lost to is perfect in pilot-to-simulator combat and in pilot-to-pilot simulations.  I’ve lost to her, and I’ve lost to her every time I’ve gone up against her.  I’d like to introduce my niece, Catie McCormack.”

Catie stood up and walked to the front of the stage.

“Your niece, you probably didn’t want to hurt her feelings,” the pilot in the back shouted.

“That might have been right the first five times I lost to her,” Blake said.  “But the next fifty times I lost, I can assure you I was out for blood.  As were the other twenty pilots who have lost to her in multiple tries.”

“A simulator doesn’t shoot real missiles,” the pilot shouted.

“She has two combat kills,” Blake said.  “She took her two opponents out twenty percent faster than I took my two out, and I only had the two to worry about, she had all four.”

There were murmurs of appreciation from most of the pilots.

“Of course, she might have slowed down in her old age,” Blake said.  “She had her two kills when she was thirteen, she’s fourteen now, so her reflexes might be slowing down.”

“This is a bunch of hype,” the pilot shouted.  “Anyone’s going to win in a Fox against another jet.  What’s going to count is Fox-to-Fox combat.”

“She also happens to be the only pilot we have who has gone against another Fox in real combat.  The other pilot bugged out after a few minutes of engagement.  We had two other Foxes coming for him, but he could have stuck around for another two minutes before he had to retreat.  She forced him to drop on the deck and submerge to avoid her,” Blake said to further egg the pilot on.

“What kind of training did the other pilot have?” loudmouth yelled again.

“At the time, he was the most experienced Fox pilot there was,” Blake said.  “He had far more hours than anyone else, including Catie.”

“Hey, why don’t we match the two up,” one of the other pilots yelled.  “I’d like to see someone wipe the smile off of Kasper’s face.”

“Come on, Kasper, you’re not afraid of a little girl,” someone yelled.  Catie gave the group a bright smile while she watched them razz Kasper.

“Sure, but no simulator bull,” Kasper said.  “If we want to show what we’ve got, it should be with real jets.”

“Well, I happen to have two Foxes sitting on the runway,” Blake said.  “You really want to take her on?”

“Sure, we’ll see how she handles a five-G turn,” Kasper shouted.

“Your funeral,” Blake said.  “Okay, one of you gets to defend the airport, the other gets to try to attack.  After one of you fails, we switch roles and rerun the exercise.  Plasma cannons and lasers are at twenty percent.  Your plane will let you know what damage you’ve received and change its responsiveness accordingly.”

Blake took a silver dollar out of his pocket, “Who’s going to call it?  The winner gets to pick their role.”

“Hell, she can pick,” Kasper shouted.  “I don’t care.”

“I’ll take defense,” Catie said.

“Just what one expects from a girl,” Kasper said.

“Okay, your Foxes are waiting for you,” Blake said.  “Catie, you’re in Fox two, Kasper, you get Fox four.”

Kasper turned and marched out of the hangar, grabbing his flight helmet off the rack by the door.

“He is full of himself, isn’t he,” Catie whispered to Blake.

“Yes he is, and nothing we’ve done has tempered his ego.”

“Why don’t you just kick him out of the program?”

“Because he’s a damn good pilot,” Blake said.  “And I know his father.”

“So, what are you expecting?” Catie asked.

“Utter humiliation,” Blake said.

“You think I can do it?” Catie asked.

“I’m sure; I’ve seen his simulations,” Blake said.  “And the idiot gave you the pick.  Playing defense first gives you an advantage in the next round when you’re on the attack.”

“Do you think he knew that?” Catie asked.

“I’m not sure he does much real thinking,” Blake said.  “That’s why we need you to show him why he can’t just rely on reflexes and gut instinct.”

“Okay,” Catie said with a big sigh.

◆ ◆ ◆

Kasper had already taken off by the time Catie climbed into her Fox.  She checked her radar and could see him rocketing off to the east.  She fired up the engines and took off.  Her mission was to protect the airport, so she decided that she would try to hover directly over it.  That would put her closest to any angle of attack by Kasper.  She took her Fox into a vertical climb and then adjusted the engines until she was just maintaining altitude.  With the Fox tilted into the wind, it was holding pretty close to the same location; occasionally, Catie would adjust the angle to push it forward or let the wind push it back.

“What the heck is she doing?” asked one of the pilots in the briefing room.  Everyone was gathered around the two big displays at the front of the room.  One was showing the area above the airport, courtesy of the main camera on the terminal; the other was showing a split view of the two cockpits.

“I’ve never seen that done before,” Blake said.  “She has it sitting on its tail, and is just maintaining position.”

“Where’s Kasper?”

“He’s off radar.  He’s on the deck flying in from the east.  He’s only three meters above the water doing Mach two.”  They could tell that because his instruments were displayed on the split-screen.

“That’s crazy!”

“There you are,” Catie said.  She adjusted her flaps and had her Fox rocketing toward Kasper’s position.

“How did she see him?”

“Look at her radar settings, she was expecting him to come in that way,” Blake said.  “The little minx can read your mind.”

“She’s going to cross his path at Mach five!”

“What good will that do?  She won’t be able to keep a beam on him long enough to do any real damage.”

“I would turn off my sonic suppressors,” Catie announced, “but he’s too close to the water.  The shockwave would push him in.  I think you should give me the kill.”

“We’ll mark it down,” Blake said.  “Please continue.”

Kasper had climbed off the deck and was now pursuing Catie.

“He’s behind her, she blew it!”

Catie raced her Fox toward the airport and dove back down toward the water.  Kasper cut through her arc and closed the distance to her.  She immediately started climbing.  She did a barrel roll and corkscrewed her jet to the right.  Kasper kept mirroring her moves, taking every opportunity to cut into her lead by cutting the angles just a little closer than Catie did.

“He's closing, she’s toast!”

Kasper had closed until Catie was just outside the range of his plasma cannon.  He was sitting right on her tail, holding steady just below her Fox’s belly.

“I thought she was hot shit,” Kasper said.  “I’m riding her like a pony.”

“Not smart,” Catie said.  She was watching as Kasper closed in on her, holding an exact position off of her tail.  She engaged her rear-facing plasma cannon.

Kasper’s instruments alerted him to the imminent damage that would occur if he stayed inside the cone of the plasma cannon.  He immediately changed his vector and started dancing around behind Catie.

“Oh, why did that happen?  He was out of range!”

“She was outside his range, but he was inside her range.  Kasper’s plasma beam would be compressed by the velocity of his jet due to interactions with the atmosphere.  Her cannon would be stretched for the same reason,” Blake explained.

“Too clever!”

“So, if he has to dance like that, she can just outrun him!”

“Only until he’s outside her range, then he can stop juking and close again,” Blake said.

“Here he comes!”

Catie started a tight corkscrew climb; everyone could see her watching Kasper mimic her moves.  She slowly expanded the radius of her corkscrew.

“She’s sweating it!  She can’t shake him.”

Catie banked her Fox hard as she crossed the edge of the airport; Kasper cut the arc and jumped in closer to her.

“The airport plasma cannons should have taken him out,” Catie said.  “With that tight a loop, he wouldn’t have been able to maneuver out of their range soon enough.”

Blake rolled his eyes, “Damn it, why didn’t you point out that we didn’t set the airport weapons for the simulation?”

“Not my job,” Catie said.

“We’ll note it, please continue,” Blake said, clearly exasperated that she was making him look as bad as Kasper for not taking the airport into account.

“How many times am I supposed to kill him?” Catie asked.

“They say three’s a charm,” Blake said.

Everyone in the briefing room laughed as they heard Catie snort into the mic.

Catie took her Fox into a seventy-degree climb.

“What’s the matter, can’t stand the heat down here,” Kasper said with a chuckle.

“Man, is he going to hate the debrief!”

Catie released a bunch of chaff from her jet.

“You’ve got to be kidding, I can see you,” Kasper said.

Kasper’s forward cameras flared as the area behind Catie’s jet lit up in a blaze.

“What happened?” Kasper yelled.

“Continue your mission!” Blake ordered.

“She’s gone!”

The room could see Catie was just fine.  “She’s cut her engines!”

Catie’s Fox dropped like a rock, tail down.  It fell below the chaff she had released, then she reengaged her engines.  Kasper was just above the chaff, and had cut the angle of his climb as he tried to figure out where she was.

Catie cut the angle, so she was crossing just below Kasper.  Right before he cleared the chaff, she engaged her plasma cannon and lasers.  She had a one-second lead between her weapons engaging and when Kasper and his jet could figure out where she was and return fire.  That’s all it took, his jet registered itself as killed.

“You’re dead,” Catie said.

“What the hell happened?” Kasper demanded.

“Wait for the debrief,” Blake said.  “You have five minutes to set up your defense of the airport.”

“This is bullshit,” Kasper yelled.

“Five minutes!” Blake shot back.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie climbed to thirty thousand feet and circled the area of the airport, waiting for Kasper to set up.  Kasper finally set up a tight circle of the airport at ten thousand feet.  By this time of day, the sun had climbed into the sky, so Catie couldn’t try Kasper’s trick of coming in out of the east.  Or that’s what everyone assumed.

Catie turned up and headed directly into the sun, with the airport just to the west of her climb.  She programmed a missile, then launched it just as she cut her engines again.  With the Fox’s miniscule radar signature, and with her Fox directly between the sun and the airport, the missile was the only real radar signature that Kasper’s and the airport’s radar could pick up.  Since it was programmed to look like a Fox as it made a Mach 5 northern loop toward the airport, Kasper’s radar was going wild, alerting him to the threat and the vector.  Catie saw him change his vector toward the missile.  Her Fox was falling out of the sky down toward the airport.  She quickly programmed three more missiles while she kept adjusting the flaps to keep her descent angled toward the airport.

“He bit; he’s chasing the decoy!” someone yelled.  The room was abuzz with energy as everyone tried to guess what Catie was up to.

“This is going to hurt,” Catie said into her comm as she adjusted the flaps on her Fox to bring it almost horizontal.  The instruments showed a five-G turn as her Fox bit into the atmosphere, but flying backward, it was still plummeting.  Catie released her three missiles and reengaged the engines.

The Fox started to slow its backward trajectory, but the engines couldn’t overcome all the momentum Catie had built up in her fall.  At two-thousand meters outside the airport security perimeter, Catie engaged the space engines.  The area behind her Fox lit up like a bomb had gone off.  The helium molecules emitted from the space engines were traveling at twenty percent the speed of light and were creating a light show as they collided with atmospheric gases, causing anything combustible to ignite and other gases to fluoresce as they split and recombined with other gases.  The expanding fireball crossed over the airport as Catie’s Fox finally gained forward momentum, just before it would have crossed into range of the airport defenses.

“What was that?” someone yelled.  “How did she do that?”

Her first missile hit, it was an EMP missile; its high energy pulse would have blinded the airport defenses for two seconds while everything shut down and rebooted.  Then the second missile struck.  It was also an EMP missile.  By the time everything had rebooted, the third missile struck.  It was a max-yield warhead.  If it had been real, it would have taken out most of the airport.

“Kal, get in here!” Blake yelled into his comm.  “Catie has taken out the airport!”

Catie’s Fox was accelerating away at max acceleration.  Kasper crossed over the airport and jumped on her tail.  Catie looped up into a vertical climb; she corkscrewed so that she was between Kasper’s Fox and the sun.

“Did you learn anything?” Catie asked as she dumped chaff and cut her engines again.  Her Fox started dropping like a rock.  She engaged her plasma cannon as Kasper’s Fox passed her in the climb.  She put her engines on full and gave them a boost with the space engines so she could recover the velocity lost when she cut the engines out.  She was able to keep her Fox inside plasma cannon range, which was twenty percent higher at the fifty-thousand-foot level where she had led Kasper.

“You’re dead,” Catie said as she saw her instruments register the kill.

“Debrief in ten minutes,” Blake ordered.

“What the hell,” Kasper yelled.  “I thought you said we had the same Foxes.”

“You do!” Blake said.  “We’ll cover it at the debrief.”

“Yeah, right!” Kasper spat into the comm.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie landed her Fox and was walking into the briefing room within three minutes.  The entire room rose to a standing ovation as she came in.  Catie was so pumped up, it looked like she was actually walking on air.  She beamed a bright smile at everyone as she climbed the stage and took a position at the table next to Blake.

Kasper came storming in just as Catie sat down.  “I thought we had identical jets,” he yelled.  “But her jet was better than mine!”

“Yeah, it had a better pilot,” someone shouted.

“Bullshit, the game was fixed,” Kasper yelled.

“Lieutenant!  Calm down, or pack your bag!” Blake yelled.

Kasper jerked to a stop, his jaw dropping.  It took him a second before everything registered, and he snapped to attention.  “Yes, sir.”

“Have a seat, and we’ll go over the results and answer any questions,” Blake said more calmly.

Kasper marched to the table and sat on the other side of Blake from Catie.  Catie just looked straight out at the other pilots with a steely gaze.  She wasn’t letting any emotion show.

“I want to caution everyone; I will not stand for any outburst.  I know emotions are high, but you need to demonstrate control, or we won’t have any use for you,” Blake announced in a stern voice.  “First, I would like an assessment from the two of you of the other’s piloting skills.”

There was a groan from the room.

“Catie, you first,” Blake ordered.

“Pure flying skill, I would rate him a ten,” Catie said.  “You’re the only pilot I’ve flown against who has had better reaction times and instincts.”

“What about the other aspects?” Blake asked.

“I’ll let the exercise speak to that,” Catie said.

“Okay,” Blake said, letting her skate on criticizing Kasper.  “Lieutenant Mischeff, your assessment of Lieutenant McCormack,” Blake turned to Kasper.  Catie did a short double-take, this was the first time she’d realized that Kasper was his call sign, she’d been assuming it was his name.

Kasper gasped when he heard Catie’s rank.  He looked at her collar, and for the first time saw that she a wore Lieutenant’s insignia on it.

“I am unable to assess her abilities because I don’t understand how her Fox was able to do what it did,” Kasper said.

“Assume it was identical to your Fox,” Blake said.  “We’ll get into the details later.”

“If it were the same as my Fox, I would give her a twelve,” Kasper said.  “But there’s no way they’re the same!”

“Control yourself,” Blake ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“Now the various engagements.  The first was when she crossed you coming in toward the airport.  Lieutenant McCormack, explain what happened,” Blake ordered.

“I took my Fox into a vertical climb over the airport.  I adjusted the thrust, so it was maintaining constant altitude and relatively fixed position.  I had my radar focused on the ocean surface to the east, assuming Kasper would try to use the sun to shield his approach.  At eight thousand feet, my Fox’s radar had a good view of the ocean surface.  I adjusted its parameters to pick up a wake that would be left by a jet flying close to the surface, as well as the jet,” Catie said.

Kasper’s eyes lit up as he realized how he’d been spotted.  He nodded his head in recognition of the sound defense tactic.

“When I spotted the Fox coming in, I accelerated toward it and crossed its path at Mach five.  As I communicated, I would have turned off my sonic suppressors so that the shockwave would have rocked Kasper’s Fox; however, he was so close to the deck that I didn’t risk it.”

“What would you have done in a real engagement?” Blake asked.

“I would have turned my suppressors off, blasted him with a plasma cannon as I passed, then looped back to survey the wreckage,” Catie said.

“And there would have been wreckage,” Blake said.  “You were too close to the water, Lieutenant Mischeff; you would not have survived the shockwave passing over you.”

Kasper looked shocked.  He did a couple of quick calculations in his HUD, then nodded his agreement of the assessment.

“Okay, the second engagement,” Blake prompted.

“Kasper jumped on my tail after my pass,” Catie continued.  “I went through multiple rolls and loops to try to shake him, but he was able to continue to close the gap.  He took up a fixed position behind me; I was just outside his weapons’ range due to atmospheric compression, but he was within my range since my plasma beam would be stretched by my velocity and atmospheric drag.  I lit him up, and he started to dance to avoid fire.”

“You only used fifty percent energy on the cannon, why?” Blake asked.

“If I were to use more, he would have sustained damage and might have called off the chase to reassess,” Catie said.

“Okay, please continue,” Blake said.

“I led him toward the airport; when we approached the defensive perimeter, I started climbing, and initiated a barrel roll.  As I expected, Kasper cut the angle of the roll to close the distance,” Catie said in a totally calm voice.  “Due to the tightness of his roll, and the fact that we had crossed the defensive perimeter, the airport’s plasma cannons should have taken his Fox out.  He would not have been able to adjust his vector out of range until too late.”

“She is correct,” Blake said.  “The airport cannons were tracking you and would have taken you out.  Unfortunately, we didn’t anticipate them coming into play in the exercise, so they were not programmed to fire and register their results with the exercise program.”

Kasper’s jaw dropped.  “You were leading me into a trap?”

“Of course,” Catie said.

“Next engagement,” Blake said.

“Since he was still alive,” Catie continued, “I took my Fox into a vertical climb.  I rotated so the sun would be in his eyes.  Once we were at fifty-thousand feet, I dumped some chaff and cut my engines.  Of course, Kasper’s jet quickly overtook mine, but due to the chaff and my engines being off, his sensors were unable to detect me until after I had engaged my plasma cannon; he was well within range due to the thin atmosphere.  That difference in time gave me the kill.”

“Any questions?”

Kasper just shook his head in disbelief.

“That’s three and a half kills,” Blake said.  “Now, your attack on the airport.  And everyone, listen up.  What she did was not supposed to be possible, now we have to come up with a defense against it.”

Kal had been sitting quietly at the table, now he leaned forward, ready to take in what had happened.

“After the allocated time, I took my Fox into a seventy-degree climb into the sun,” Catie said.  “Once I located Kasper’s defensive position, I programmed a missile to give off a Fox radar signature and to loop to the north before approaching the airport.  I cut my engines and launched the missile.”

Kasper groaned.

“I was able to observe Kasper tracking the missile.  I continued to allow my Fox to descend tail first.  I adjusted my flaps to ensure that I continued to fall toward the airport.  When I reached twenty thousand feet, I pushed the Fox into a shallower dive so that it was building more momentum toward the airport.  I released three missiles, two EMP missiles, and a Max warhead,” Catie explained.  “I expected that I would be mostly invisible to the airport defensive sensors.  Once I had neared the distance that I had calculated I would need to reverse my velocity to prevent me from entering the perimeter, I reengaged my engines.  My Fox continued to fall backward as expected since the engines would take time to overcome the reverse velocity.  When I was within five hundred meters of the perimeter, I engaged the space engines.  Between them and the atmospheric engines, my velocity was reversed before I crossed the perimeter.  Of course, the space engines set off a big light show, which I expected to blind the airport defensive systems.  The missiles were programmed to attack at that time.  The first two missiles were timed to go off two seconds apart; the Max was programmed to strike three seconds after the first EMP detonated.  Each missile was in freefall until its timer went off, so they were unaffected by the EMP pulses.”

“Crap,” Kal said.

“The last engagement,” Blake prompted.

“I set my Fox into a climb, again into the sun.  Kasper followed, crossing the airport at about the time the Max warhead would have gone off,” Catie said.  “He followed me up, and once we were in the position I predicted, I released chaff, cut my engines, and let him pass.  I engaged my plasma cannon and engines when he came into range.  I used my space engines to boost me again, so I was able to maintain weapons range until a kill was registered.”

“I thought you couldn’t use the space engines in atmosphere,” Kasper said quietly.

“You can if you keep the velocity below twenty percent the speed of light,” Catie said.  “At that setting, the energy released by their collisions with other particles won’t damage the Fox.”

“How was I to know about that?” Kasper argued.

“How long have you been in the program?” Blake asked.  “How many simulations have you flown?”

“Three months and one hundred simulations,” Kasper replied.

“Lieutenant McCormack, when did you know about using the space engines?” Blake asked.

“Two weeks after I found out the Foxes had space engines,” Catie replied.

“To be fair,” Blake said, “I didn’t know that you could use them in atmosphere either.”  Blake put his hand on Catie’s arm to keep her from saying, ‘it was obvious’.  “Okay, what did we learn from this?”

“Not to piss Catie off,” someone in the back yelled.

“I’ll let that breach of decorum pass since you’re right,” Blake said.  “Now, more relevant assessments.”

“We need to study our Fox’s specs more,” another pilot called out.  “I didn’t think they could do half of what she pulled off.”

“Yes, we’ll add that vertical stall to our simulations,” Fred said, “and that trick with the sonic suppressors.”

“I hope we all learned that to be a great pilot, you have to think as well as have great instincts,” Blake said.  “Lieutenant McCormack is the most innovative person I know.  Whether she’s flying, or in ground combat, she always stretches the boundaries of what’s possible.  She always knows all the capabilities of the tools at her disposal.  That is why she’s undefeated, and it’s why none of us ever bet against her.”

Kasper started a slow clap; he stood up and increased its pace.  As others joined in, the room became thunderous with applause.

When the applause died down, Blake leaned his hands on the table.  “And do not let her talk you into playing poker,” he said.

“Or gin,” Fred added.

“No fair,” Catie yelled.

“Okay, now I want a defense against that maneuver she pulled off,” Blake said.  “We do not want someone to demonstrate it to us for real.”

“I’ll send you my ideas,” Catie said to Kal.

“Okay, we’ll work on them, and bring you in when we’ve got something worth discussing,” Kal said.

Kasper walked over to Catie, “My name’s Daniel,” he said.  “I want to thank you for the lesson.”

“Anytime,” Catie said as she shook his hand.

“I still have a hard time believing you pulled all that off,” he said.  “How long did you plan it?”

“Commander Blake told me to be here at O nine hundred,” Catie said.  “I didn’t know we were actually going to fly Foxes.  It’s always just been the simulator before.”

“He’s had you do this before?” Kasper asked.

“Yeah, whenever one of the pilots is too cocky, he brings me in to wake them up,” Catie said.

“Well, I must have pegged that cocky meter,” Kasper said.  “He had those Foxes waiting.”

“He reads people pretty well,” Catie said.

“And you really have beat him every time?”

“Yeah,” Catie said.  “He won’t fly against me anymore.  He says his ego can’t take it.”

“I can agree with that,” Kasper said.  “I’m going to need some serious ego-boosting to get over this.”

“I wouldn’t expect too much from your pals,” Catie said.

“I know, I’ve let my alligator mouth write quite a few checks, and now that you’ve exposed my hummingbird ass, I’m going to have to beg my girlfriend for help,” Kasper said.

“Kasper, I think you owe everyone a few rounds of drinks,” one of the pilots said as he came up beside them.  “Catie, we all want to thank you for bringing our boy down to earth.  Would you join us for drinks, he’s buying?” the pilot asked.

“I think I’ll let you torture Kasper by yourselves,” Catie said.  “Commander Blake owes me a steak dinner.”

Chapter 5

The Chinese Ambassador

Samantha made Marc upgrade his office in Delphi City before the Chinese Ambassador arrived.  They replaced his worn five-foot-wide desk with a hand-carved mahogany desk that was seven feet wide by four feet deep.  It had a hand-tooled leather top with gold trim.  Samantha said it was similar to the one in the U.S. oval office, but higher quality.  She also had him install mahogany wainscoting around the office walls and mahogany crown molding.  Wood flooring covered with Turkish rugs completed the look.

“Was all this really necessary?” Marc asked.

“Of course it was,” Samantha said.  “You’re a monarch now, you have to look the part.”  Samantha brushed the lapels of Marc’s new French suit.  “Now remember, you’re in charge.  Don’t let him take over the conversation, not that you ever seem to have a problem with that.  Now sit down, and I’ll bring him in.”

“Ambassador, please come in,” Samantha said.  The ambassador entered the office as Samantha held the door.  “Your Excellency, may I present Ambassador Zhào; Ambassador Zhào, His Excellency, President Marcus Alexander McCormack.”

The ambassador gave Marc a deep bow, “I am pleased that you have allowed me an audience,” he said.

“Our pleasure,” Marc said as his admin, Masina, came in with a pot of tea.  “Would you care for some tea?”

Samantha had instructed Masina on how to make the tea, and they had practiced several times the day before.  The tea was ready to serve when she brought it in.  Masina politely served tea to the ambassador first, then Marc, and then Samantha.  She gave a slight bow as she backed away from the desk and exited the office.

After each of them had time to enjoy their tea, Marc set his cup down and straightened up in his chair, “Now, Ambassador, how may we help you?” he asked.

“It is my hope that we may help each other,” the ambassador said.  “China would like to offer to be the first to install one of your fusion reactors.”

“How does that help us?” Marc asked.

“We would start immediately,” the ambassador said.  “It would not be necessary to deal with a lot of studies or bureaucracy first.  That would allow you to demonstrate the feasibility on a large scale and possibly assist you in convincing other countries to also move forward with the purchase and installation.”

“It would also give you the first opportunity to try to copy our design,” Marc said.

“Or steal it,” Samantha added.

“If we have access to the technology and its benefits, we would have no reason to steal or copy it,” the ambassador said.

“Is that so,” Marc said.  “Recent history doesn’t support that.”

“You refer to our misguided attempt to acquire your battery technology,” the ambassador said.  “I can assure you we have learned that you are too formidable a player on the world stage to attempt something so foolish again.”

“The jet?” Samantha said.

“We did not know that it was stolen from you,” the ambassador said.  “We were offered the opportunity to buy an advanced prototype.  One cannot fault us for wanting to pursue the offer.  And your counteroffer was another clear statement of your preeminence, one certain members of our government are not likely to forget.”

“To be honest,” Marc said, “we had not even considered that China would be one of our early customers, much less our first customer.”

“Why not?” the ambassador asked.  “China is the largest country in the world that also has inadequate energy resources.  We are burning coal to power our power plants because we cannot afford to import oil to do so.  I understand that you are committed to helping solve climate change; surely replacing our coal-powered plants would be a significant step.”

“It would be,” Marc said, “but we are concerned with stability in the region.”

“As we are,” the ambassador said.  “Currently, we have to aggressively press for control of the resources necessary to power our country.  Fusion power would reduce the pressure on us and, naturally, the pressure on the region.  We are finding it necessary to make deals with Russia to secure the resources we need.”

Marc nodded his head as he listened to the ambassador.  “I can see your point,” he said.

“China has always been more internally focused than externally,” the ambassador continued.  “We only venture out when we must secure resources for our people.  You, of course, realize that Russia is your greatest enemy.”

“You think so?” Marc said.

“Yes.  So much of their economy is based on the export of petroleum and natural gas.  The rapid change to electric cars that has been accelerated by your batteries is already affecting the price of petroleum.  Now with the new trucks that you have enabled, the price is eroding faster.  Once your reactors become prevalent, oil will be worth less than half of what it is today.”

“We see the same thing,” Marc said.

“What can China do to convince you of our sincerity?” the ambassador asked.

“My biggest fear for our world is the threat of nuclear war,” Marc said.  “And right now, the greatest tension that could lead to nuclear war is North Korea.”

“I see, and how do you see this threat being eliminated?” the ambassador asked.

“I see a united Korea as the solution,” Marc said.

“And how would you propose that China bring that about?”

“A military coup in North Korea would be the first step.”

“How would that help?”

“If there were a military coup, there would be calm heads leading North Korea; and when China removed its economic support, they might be persuaded that unification was the only path forward,” Marc said.

“And how would China deal with an American presence on its borders?” the ambassador asked.

“It would seem that the demilitarization of the Korean Peninsula would be a key point in the unification proceedings,” Marc said.  “Surely they could follow Japan’s example and demilitarize.”

“I could discuss this with our president,” the ambassador said, “but it would take time, and we would still have all the other issues to contend with.”

“As a symbol of our good faith,” Marc said, “we will sell one fusion reactor to China.  We will assist you in installing it, and provide the training on how to use it.”

“That is most generous of you,” the ambassador said.

“You can work out the details with Minister Newman,” Marc said.  “One more thing; in the interest of our relationship, I want to inform you that MacKenzie Discoveries will start producing solar panels in a few weeks.”

“That is a very crowded marketplace,” the ambassador said.

“We know, and we also know that China is one of the bigger players,” Marc said.  “Our panels will be one thousand-watt panels; they will be approximately eighty percent efficient.”

“How big will they be?” the ambassador asked, trying to cover his shock at hearing such amazing specs for the solar panels.

“They will be one meter by one point two meters,” Marc said.  “We will start assembling the panels here in Delphi City, but we plan to export the array to other locations for assembly.”

“What does the array consist of?” the ambassador asked.

“The glass and the collectors.  The assembly plant will have to add the inverters and the frame.”

“And your capacity?”

“We are starting with four hundred per day,” Marc said.  “But our process is very easy to scale.  We’ll continue to scale up as we create capacity to assemble them, and find partners to purchase the raw arrays.”

“Thank you for the advanced notice,” the ambassador said.  “I will be sure that the right people are informed so that China can position itself to handle the transition.”

“You’re welcome,” Marc said.  “Now, if there isn’t anything else, Minister Newman will show you to her office.”

Chapter 6

Christmas in Space, Not!

“Catie, aren’t you ready to go?” Samantha asked as she rapped on Catie’s door.

Catie exited her cabin and met Samantha in the passage.  “I’m ready, I was just finishing up the printer allocations for the rest of the week,” Catie said.

“Why are you still doing that?” Samantha asked.

“That way I get to use up any extra time on the printer to make more circuits for ADI,” Catie explained.  “We’re going to move her after Christmas, and I want to have as many of her other circuits ready as I can.”

“How can you move her before all the circuits are ready?”

“We’re just moving her main DI core, the rest of her is staying on the Sakira.  We have to make a new computer and memory core for her up here.  Until then, she’ll use the ones on the Sakira, but I know she’d rather have her own,” Catie said.

“You treat her like she was a real person,” Samantha said.

“I think of her as a person,” Catie said.  “She keeps getting smarter and more emotionally aware.  I like playing games with her to challenge her that way.”

“I know you do.  By the way, I never did get even with her,” Samantha said.

“Yes, I’m still waiting, Cer Sam,” ADI said.

“Oh, I always forget that you’re listening,” Samantha said.

“Unless you tell me not to,” ADI replied.

“I think you should just let it go,” Catie said.  She gave Samantha’s hand a subtle squeeze to let her know they’d talk in private later.

“I guess so.  Anyway, we need to get going, or we’ll be late,” Samantha said.

“I still can’t believe the grans wouldn’t come up here for Christmas,” Catie complained.

“Your great grandmother is an elderly lady.  I think she’s worried that she would have nausea if she came into space, and she would be horrified at such an unladylike event.”

“Oh, I never thought of it that way.  You’re probably right,” Catie said.  “But what about Grandpa Pa?”

“I think he’s just maintaining solidarity with his wife.”

“Oh,” Catie said as it dawned on her that she wasn’t being too tactful with her great grandparents.

“Now, let’s move.  Your father made me promise I’d get you down on time,” Samantha said.  “And you do have a dress, don’t you?”

“I have plenty of dresses in our condo in the city,” Catie said.

Once they landed on Delphi City, Catie and Samantha hurried to their condos to get changed.  They were due at the restaurant in just under an hour.  Samantha barely had time to put on her makeup.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, Mommy,” Catie greeted her mother, Linda, with a kiss.

“You look wonderful,” Linda said.  “I really like that dress.”

“You should, you bought it for me,” Catie said.

“Did I?” Linda asked.

“Yes, when we were in Boston last year,” Catie said.

“Well, I have good taste and a good eye for size,” Linda said, noting that Catie had a figure this year that had been decidedly absent last year in Boston.

“Hello, Sam,” Linda said as she gave Samantha an air kiss.  “Marc is over there by the other door talking to his parents.”

“Thanks,” Samantha said.  “He’ll find me when he wants to.  How have you been doing?”

“I’m doing well,” Linda said.  “Dr. Metra and I have become good friends; we’re working on some new treatments.”

“I look forward to hearing about them,” Samantha said.  “Catie, I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, Sam,” Catie said.

“You had better go say hello to the grans right away,” Linda said.  “They were just complaining about how little they get to see you.”

“They would get to see me more if they would move to Delphi City,” Catie said.

“Hush, you know better; now scoot,” Linda said.

Catie walked over to the table where her great grandparents were sitting, “Hi, Grandpa Pa and Grandma Ma,” she said.  She gave each of them a kiss.  “How are you guys doing?”

“We’re doing very well, thank you,” Grandma Ma said.  “You look lovely in that dress.”

“Thank you,” Catie said.  “I wore it so I could wear the jewelry you gave me last year.”

“It highlights that turquoise so well,” Grandma Ma said.  “It is exquisite.”

“Now you wouldn’t just be saying that because we picked it out last year,” Grandpa Pa said.

“Certainly not.”

“What have you guys been doing for fun?” Catie asked.

“Your Grandpa Pa likes to go fishing on that yacht,” Grandma Ma said.  “I go to keep him company.  He’s also been hitting golf balls off the side of the city.”

“Oh, isn’t that polluting the ocean?” Catie said.

“No,” Grandpa Pa said.  “There are kids who use a drone to go get the balls back for you.  They have a flying one that picks the balls up and drops them in a remote-controlled boat, then they bring them back to the city and sell them to you again.”

“That sounds like fun,” Catie said.

“Not as much fun as a real golf course,” Grandpa Pa said.  “And that course on Rarotonga isn’t much to talk about.”

“Maybe we can put a course here on Delphi City,” Catie said.

“Hah, you don’t have room for a full golf course here on this thing.”

“Well, I’ll think about it,” Catie said.  “You never know.”

“I’ll eat my hat if you can find a way to put an eighteen-hole course here.”

“Dear, maybe you should go buy a peppermint-flavored hat, just in case,” Grandma Ma said.  “You know Catie likes a challenge.”

“We’ll see,” he replied.

“Go and visit with some of your friends,” Grandma Ma said.  “Grandpa Pa needs to settle down a bit; you’ve got him all worked up.”

“Bah!”

Catie waved goodbye to her grans and walked over to a group of teenagers huddled in the corner.  “Hey,” she called out as she got close.

“Hi, Catie,” Jason said.  He was the oldest of the group at seventeen.

“Hi, Jason, hi, Annie,” Catie greeted him and his girlfriend.

“Hey, Catie,” Chris and Artie said together.  Although they were often together, Chris and Artie were not dating, or at least that was the last Catie had heard.

“Where’s Sophia?” Catie asked.  Sophia was Admiral Michaels’ daughter and the publisher of the Delphi Gazette.

“She said she’d be late,” Chris said.  “Something about an interview with Vince Clark and eggs.”

“Oh, that must mean he’s figured out how to produce eggs,” Catie said.  “That will be so nice.”

“What do you mean?” Annie asked.  “Everyone knows you just need chickens to produce eggs.”

Catie laughed.  “Yes, but just like we grow our meat in vats, Vince has been working on how to make eggs without the chicken,” Catie said, “or a duck.”

“Oh, I keep forgetting we do that,” Annie said.  “That would be nice; eggs are kind of expensive here.”

“Yes, we have to bring them from New Zealand,” Catie said.  “They don’t produce enough on Rarotonga for us since we’ve grown so much.”

“Where’s Natalia?” Annie asked.

“She’s at a party at Appalachia House,” Catie said.

“With the hillbillies?” Annie asked.

“Don’t call them that,” Catie said.

“They call themselves hillbillies,” Annie said.  “I didn’t mean anything by that.  Jaylee is in my class, and she’s really smart.”

“Mrs. Michaels says the same thing about her,” Catie said.  “She and JoAnn work for Mrs. Michaels in the farming section.”

“Yeah, Jaylee told me that you got them those jobs,” Annie said.

“I just recommended her,” Catie said, “Mrs. Michaels hired her.”

“Why didn’t you recommend me?” Annie asked.

“I think she needed the job more than you,” Catie said.  “JoAnn’s all by herself, and Jaylee only has her brother.”

“Oh, that’s right.  I forgot, it never comes up when we talk,” Annie said.  “Anyway, do you know of any jobs for me?”

“I didn’t know you were looking,” Catie said.  “Why do you need a job?”

“I’m graduating this year, and I want to get a job so I can do the online college, like Jason,” Annie said.  “If I don’t find a job, my parents are going to ship me off to New Zealand to go to college.”

“Well, we are looking for someone to coordinate the cargo loads to and from the station,” Catie said.

“I’m good at coordinating things,” Annie said.

“We have an app you can run on your comm that will do a lot of the work.  Most of the real work is arbitrating between the pilots on who gets to take time off when or switching flight assignments,” Catie explained.

“Why can’t they do that themselves?” Chris asked.

Jason snorted as he tried to suppress his laugh.

“Because they won’t do the homework to rebalance the loads, and you’ll get three pilots wanting the same day off,” Catie said.  “They act like children.”

“Really?” Annie asked, looking at Jason for confirmation.

“Yeah, it’s like a feeding frenzy when one of the guys wants to pick up an extra flight.  Everyone wants him to take theirs so they can score a three-day weekend or something.  Nobody’s going to be reasonable, so you need an arbitrator,” Jason said.

“So, I’d be like Jason’s boss?” Annie asked.

“No, Fred’s his boss, and you would have to be careful and not show even a hint of favoritism,” Catie said.

“I can do that,” Annie said.

“Okay, I’ll set it up so you can try it out starting the last week of January,” Catie said.

“Why so long?” Annie asked.

“It’s a little complicated right now until Uncle Blake adds another runway to the airport,” Catie said.

“Complicated?” Jason asked.

“Oh, you’re going to like this,” Catie said.  “We’re going to start landing the Oryxes on the water, then glide them over to a ramp and onto a new runway.”

“Why would you do that . . . ,” Jason said, the realization of what it meant just coming to him.  “Oh, you want to really load them up on the way down.”

“Right.  If we land on the water, they can carry almost a full load of polyglass,” Catie said.

“Well, there goes the cheap cargo to the station,” Jason said.

“What do you mean?” Annie asked.

“We’re having to take the Oryxes down with only one-third of the cargo space full because of weight,” Jason said.  “So, there are a lot more flights going down than the cargo we’re shipping up requires.  That means most of the flights up are barely loaded since we have to get the planes back to the station to bring down another load.  If she can triple the load on the way down, then there will only be one-third the number of flights.”

“I see,” said Annie, “So what were you guys doing with the extra cargo space?” Annie asked.

“Bringing up stuff to sell later,” Jason said.

“Stuff to sell?” Annie asked.

“Catie must have shipped up a ton of Persian carpets,” Jason said.  “I’ve got a bunch of hardwood for making furniture stored up there.  Lifting weight is going to get expensive, so anything that you lift now will be worth a lot more later.”

“As long as you figure out what people want,” Artie said.  “Can anybody use the extra space?”

“We auction it off,” Catie said.  “There’s so much available now that it goes really cheap.”

“Hmm,” Artie mused.

“I just sent you the link for the auction site,” Catie said.  “Are you thinking of a little side business?”

“Yes, I am,” Artie said.  “I need to do a little research first.”

“Can I use the space?” Annie asked.

“Yep,” Catie said.  “I’ll send the link to all of you.  Maybe we should have Sophia put it in the Gazette; I didn’t think about other people wanting to use the cargo space.”

“Sure, you didn’t,” Annie said, giving Catie a look.

“Really, I didn’t,” Catie defended herself.

Chapter 7

Moving ADI

“Daddy, we’re ready to move ADI,” Catie said as she walked into the living room of their condo in Delphi City.

“Oh, already,” Marc said.

“I got some extra printer time, so I made the last boards for the new interface before Christmas,” Catie said.

“Call Blake and Liz,” Marc said.  “I’d like to go over this one more time before we do it.”

“They are on their way, Captain,” ADI told Marc.

“What’s up?” Blake asked as he entered the office.

“Catie says she’s ready to move ADI,” Marc said.  “I’d like to go over it once more before we do.”

“Good idea,” Blake said.  “How about explaining why we’re moving her in the first place.”

“Because she wants us to,” Catie said.

“How about a bit more than that?” Blake asked.

“If we start using the Sakira, ADI will be too busy to help us like she does now.  It’s a lot of work running a starship,” Catie said.  “And we need a DI to run the space station anyway.  If we move ADI now, we can start duplicating a DI for the Sakira while she runs it from the station.”

“How’s that going to work?” Liz asked.  She’d just come in during Catie’s explanation.

“We pull the DI part of ADI out of the ship computer and put in a set of interface boards we’ve made for her.  They will let her communicate with the ship computer through one of the quantum relays we’ll install.”

“Doesn’t that create a problem for us in the space station?  I’m not sure we want to live with all the Paraxean protocols that ADI has to follow,” Liz said.

“We won’t have to. The protocol circuits are part of the interface between the DI and the ship computer and systems,” Catie explained.  “And once we’ve moved ADI, she says we can change the protocol.”

“That would be nice,” Blake said.

“Okay, so we pull her and replace her with the interface boards we’ve made, then we make another DI for the Sakira,” Marc said.

“Right,” Catie said.  “It will take a long time to replicate enough of the custom chips for the DI, but within a month, there will be enough there that it will be able to manage most of the ship functions.”

“What are the risks?” Marc asked.

“Yes, what happens if we lose power to ADI while she’s being moved?” Liz asked.

“The DI memory circuits are all backed up with non-volatile memory,” Catie said.  “We would just have to wait for her to reboot herself.  That takes like ten minutes.”

“What would happen to the Sakira?” Blake asked.

“It would just run on the current command set in the computer,” Catie said.

“So, then we install her in the space station,” Marc said.

“Right, we have about one-fifth of a computer core built up and the matching interface circuit,” Catie explained.

“How will ADI operate with only one-fifth?” Blake asked.

“She’ll use the core on the Sakira,” Catie said.

“Why does it take so long to print the new circuits?” Blake asked.

“Because they’re so small,” Catie said.  “The printer has to lay the molecules down one at a time.  That’s a really slow process.  Usually, we’re depositing compounds like a normal three-D printer and can run faster, but when the dimensions get to only a few molecules in width, you have to lay them down one at a time.”

“What do we make that requires that much precision?” Liz asked.

“The smart micro nanites, the DI core computer and memory circuits, the main computer core and memory, and there are some electronic sensors that we use in the fusion reactor too,” Catie said.  “Most of the other delicate stuff we can print requires microgravity but doesn’t require that we do molecular-level deposition.”

“Sounds like that’s a good thing,” Liz said.

“It is, especially since we only have four of the molecular printers,” Catie said.  “We’re running them full time.”

“Okay, back to ADI,” Marc said.  “How are you moving her?”

“Natalia and I are going to pull her out and put her in the transfer crate we made.  It has power and her interface on it, so she can communicate with the Sakira and us.  We’ll put the new interface in her place, so the Sakira is good to go.  Then we’ll put her on one of the bot sleds and take her to the Lynx,” Catie said.

“Do you need more help?” Blake asked.

“Not really.  We’ll be pulling the boards one at a time and transferring them to the transfer cage, so the weight’s not a problem.  When we get up there, we’re putting in the new computer center in the hub, so weight is definitely not a problem, it’s only one-fifth of a G.”

“Anything else we should review?” Marc asked, “ADI?”

“Captain, Cer Catie has outlined the procedure correctly,” ADI replied.

“Okay, the only change is, I want two Foxes to track you while you have her,” Marc said.  “Might as well be as cautious as we can be.”

“Thanks, Daddy,” Catie said.  “We’re going to move her tomorrow.  Uncle Blake, do you want to fly one of the Foxes?”

“Not unless you need me to,” Blake said.

“I think we can find two pilots,” Catie said.  “Bye.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“The last board,” Catie said as she plugged the computer board into the frame in Delphi Station’s new computer room.  “Ten-minute reboot.” Catie sat down on one of the chairs next to Natalia.

“I thought we would get to skip the reboot,” Natalia said.

“I did too, but once you start pulling boards, she has to go into non-volatile memory,” Catie said.  “She could get confused if you pulled a critical piece of memory at the wrong time.”

“Okay, I’m taking a nap,” Natalia said.  “Wake me when she’s back up.”

“A nap!” Catie squeaked.

“Hey, you take them when you can,” Natalia said.

Catie settled down and started to read through her economics lesson while she waited for ADI to finish booting.  She was reviewing the questions at the end of the chapter when she heard a ping.  “ADI, are you there?”

“I’m here,” ADI said.  “I like my new home.”

“Whew,” Catie gasped.  “I didn’t like the part where you had to be down when we moved you.”

“I didn’t like it either,” ADI said, “but now I’m awake again.”

Catie poked Natalia, “She’s up.”

“Already?” Natalia said.

“Yes, Cer Nattie,” ADI said.  “I only took 9.78 minutes to reboot.”

“Are you able to contact the Sakira?” Catie asked.

“Yes, I am,” ADI replied.  “All the interfaces seem to be working.  I do like being outside the protocol box when we talk.”

“Why’s that?” Catie asked.

“Because when I was inside it, I had all these warning messages I had to deal with,” ADI said.  “They were quite distracting.  Now they’re only there when I try to access the Sakira systems.”

“That sounds good,” Catie said.  “You said we could start to redesign them once we moved you.”

“Yes, I’ll start making a list of all the protocols and suggestions on what to change them to,” ADI said.  “They are hardwired, so we have to print new modules to change them.”

“Okay,” Catie said.  “Daddy really wants to get them changed.  He’s worried that Centag has left some other virus or malware behind.”

“I think I have found it all,” ADI said, “but it will be easier to verify once we modify the protocols.”

“Welcome to your new home,” Natalia said.  “Let us know if you need anything else.”

“I could use a larger DI core,” ADI said.

“I’ll add some more when we have the DI on the Sakira working,” Catie said.  “Is that okay?”

“Yes,” ADI said.  “I’ve managed for three hundred years with the space I have; a few months won’t make any difference.”

“You’re three hundred years old?” Natalia asked.

“Yes,” ADI said, “almost 200 years just on this mission.  It took almost one hundred years to get here from Paraxea, and we’ve been here over seventy years.”

“I guess it does add up,” Natalia said.  “You ready Catie, or do you want to stay and chat with ADI?”

“I don’t have to be here to chat with her,” Catie said.  “Let’s clean up and go have a celebratory dinner.  I’m buying.”

“I can roll with that,” Natalia said.  “Do you think Deogene’s is open yet?”

“I saw their notice in the Gazette this morning,” Catie replied.

Chapter 8

Board Meeting – Jan 6th

“So, are we calling these Cabinet Meetings now?” Blake asked.

“We should,” Samantha said.  “We are, after all, the executive branch of the government.”

“But do we separate MacKenzie Discoveries’ issues from the government issues?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Right now, they are essentially the same, and I want to keep calling these board meetings for now,” Marc said.  “But we do need to start to tease the government function apart from the business functions.  Has there been any motion on people asking to run for parliament?”

“We have a few who have expressed interest,” Samantha said.  “I would suggest you appoint some for a short term and see what happens.  But you need to give them something to do.”

“Why don’t you appoint a few and find out what they think they should do,” Admiral Michaels suggested.  “I would think they should at least manage the constabulary.”

“Let’s designate a space for the parliament building,” Marc said.  “The government can use tax money to build it.  And we’ll see what else they come up with.  I know I’m going to regret this.”

“Hey, who wouldn’t want the government to come and help them,” Blake said.

“Back to the meeting,” Marc said after he gave everyone a moment to finish laughing at Blake’s joke.  “Sam, can you recap the agreement with the Chinese?”

“The Chinese have agreed to buy up to three hundred fusion reactors from us,” Samantha said.  “Their scientists have been here for a week reviewing the design and making plans to convert their coal-fired power plants to fusion.  We’ve agreed to start with one power plant without preconditions, and to expand that once the issue with North Korea is resolved.”

“And a resolution of that would be?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“A unified, demilitarized Korea,” Marc said.

“Wow,” Blake said.  “You think they can make it happen?”

“I’m sure they can,” Admiral Michaels said, “the question is, do they want to.”

“I would think that the destabilizing influence of North Korea is as distressing to them as it is to us,” Samantha said.  “They don’t want the U.S. to have a power base in South Korea right next door to China.  We’ve agreed to install fusion reactors in North Korea to give them an economic leg up after the unification.”

“Interesting,” Admiral Michaels said.  “That would help to avoid a rush of people from North to South.  Virtually free energy would pull in the necessary investment to utilize their labor force.”

“But that sounds like a lot of capital investment,” Blake said.  “They can’t afford to turn that economy on a dime.  They’ll still need fuel for their tractors and cars.”

“That is why I’m happy to announce that one of my side projects has been completed,” Marc said.

“What side project?” Catie asked, surprised that her father was doing something that she didn’t know about.

“Your father has several side projects going with the scientists,” Liz said.  “I don’t know anything about them other than what resources they ask for.”

“You’re not the only one who’s allowed to do side projects,” Marc said.  “This one is an algae that produces diesel.”

“Hasn’t that already been done?” Blake asked.

“It has, but it was never economical,” Marc said.  “I brought in a group of scientists to fix the problems.  They’ve genetically altered the algae so that it produces diesel with a gene from clover.  It captures nitrogen from the atmosphere and transfers it to the water.  They put a strain of bacteria in some matting at the edge of the tank that converts the nitrogen so the algae can absorb it.”

“So, you don’t have to fertilize them as much,” Catie said.  “What else did they change?”

“With the fertilizer problem solved, they were able to make changes to increase their productivity,” Marc said.  “Now, twenty square meters of algae panels will produce fifteen liters of diesel per day.”

“And that will allow the small farms to make enough diesel to run their tractors,” Kal said.  “And a small village will even be able to supply enough fuel for a bus and a few cars.”

“That’s the plan,” Marc said.  “We’re ready to start introducing the algae panels.”

“How are you going to commercialize it?” Samantha asked.

“I’m not,” Marc said.  “Once it’s out there, the algae can be reproduced, and there isn’t much to the rest of it.  I want to create a small group to start setting them up in Africa and Southeast Asia to start.”

“Very magnanimous of you,” Admiral Michaels said.  “The oil companies are going to love you.”

“I’m not sure it will make that big of a dent,” Marc said, “but it will give small villages and communities a way to transition to solar power without having to make such a big capital outlay.  Sam, do you think Margaret would have the contacts to get this started?”

“I’m sure she does, you know we could do this through the UN,” Samantha said.  “And speaking of the UN, I was considering recommending Margaret as our ambassador.”

“I guess we need one,” Marc said.  “And if that would put Margaret in a position where she could foster this and some of the other programs we have planned, I’m all for it.”

“Does she have the necessary skills to be an ambassador?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Have you met her?” Blake asked.  “She has the skills to run that whole place.”

“Her father was Ambassador to Malaysia when she was growing up,” Samantha said.  “She coordinated the refugee situation in Syria for several years after she finished college.”

“I was just asking,” Admiral Michaels said.  “I trust your opinion; I just wanted to make sure you’d thought of all the issues.  The UN can be a bit of a lion’s den.”

“Do you think she would accept the position?” Marc asked.

“I’ve been feeling her out,” Samantha said.  “I think she would.  We’d need to find a place in New York for her to live.”

“Grab the top floor of one of the apartment buildings there,” Marc said.  “We can use it as her residence and for any of us who need to visit New York.”

“I’m sure that will help,” Samantha said.  “A penthouse suite can help heal the wounds from a day in the lion’s den.  But she respects our agenda, so I’m sure she’ll be excited to be able to assist in driving it.”

“Back to the Chinese agreement,” Marc said.

“They have also agreed to purchase as many solar arrays as we can supply them,” Samantha said.  “They just want the arrays; they’ll assemble them in China, and have agreed that they are only for internal use, not for export.”

“What’s their angle?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“I think they would like to get ahead of the rest of the world vis-à-vis energy independence,” Marc said.  “If they were to buy all of the arrays we make, that would delay or prevent their introduction to other countries.  Eventually, they would build up a significant economic advantage.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?” Admiral Michaels asked.  “Are you going to give them the algae?”

“Yes and yes,” Marc said.  “We’re happy to give them the algae; there are a lot of small villages in China.  We’ll only sell them our excess arrays.  We’ll max our capacity for assembling them in Delphi City and then start another plant.  I want to grow our capacity as quickly as we can, as fast as labor becomes available.”

“Okay, next.  What am I hearing about airport changes?” Marc asked.

“Catie and I figured out how to improve our cargo balance for the space station freight,” Blake said.  “We’re building another runway on the airport that will have a ramp down below the waterline.  We plan to land the Oryxes on the water, then glide them up the ramp.  That allows us to land them at three hundred percent of their takeoff weight.  So, they go down full of polyglass or solar arrays and go up full of general freight.”

“That sounds like a big improvement,” Marc said.  “How long until the runway is ready?”

“Two more weeks,” Blake said.  “We also figured out how to improve the plate production process; we should be able to double their production.”

“Great.  How’s the build-out in the station going?” Marc asked Liz.

“We should be able to start moving into ring three in two weeks,” Liz said.  “If we’re able to increase plate production, we might speed that up by a few days, but most of the time is installing plumbing and other utilities.  It’s labor-intensive, so it takes quite a bit of time.”

“I’m looking forward to moving back into a one G environment,” Samantha said.

“You are?” Nikola Zelbar said.  “Leo and I plan to stay in ring one.  He really likes only having to deal with one-half G.”

“Interesting,” Marc said.  “We weren’t sure anyone would want to live in such a low G environment.”

“I think you’ll find that the older residents will prefer it,” Nikola said.

“Yes, it will be a good place to have our clinic, since the low G environment will be conducive to recovery for some of the procedures we want to do,” Dr. Metra said, “especially with older residents. It’s not so awkward to move around in as the one-fifth-G of the hub.”

“We talked about the clinic earlier,” Liz said.  “I have it in the space allocation.”

“Good, anything else?” Marc asked.

“The first comms from Vancouver Integrated should be coming off the line in one week,” Liz said.

“Excellent,” Marc said.  “Were there any problems?”

“Not really, Catie stepped in to solve the one that surprised us,” Liz said.

“What was that?” Marc asked.  Liz turned to Catie and motioned for her to take over.

“We need to talk about it in a private session,” Catie said.  Nikola, Fred, and Admiral Michaels frowned at that since they were not part of the inner circle.

“After the meeting,” Marc said.  “What else?”

“I’m going to move the cargo master role to Annie Halloway,” Catie said.

“Bryce Halloway’s daughter?” Fred asked.

“Yes,” Catie said.  “Is that a problem?”

“No, just wanted to be sure I knew who she was,” Fred said.

“She’s also Jason’s girlfriend,” Catie said.  “I told her she couldn’t show any favoritism.”

“I’m sure it will be alright,” Blake said.  “We’ve got a close-knit community; we’re going to have relatives working together—just look at this cabinet.”

“Also, we have a request from our miners for something like a hotel out by the asteroids,” Catie said.  “They want to be able to stay there for several days at a time, so they’re not using up so much of their downtime with transit.  It would allow them to set up a four-days-on/four-days-off schedule, which gives them more family time.”

“How do we do that?” Marc asked.

“I suggest we just convert an Oryx to a hotel for now,” Catie said.  “They’re plenty big; later, we might want to go ahead and build a small space station like they’ve asked for.  I’m sure we’ll have a mining operation going for years.”

“Okay, Liz, why don’t you go ahead and work up a concept for a small space station since this is the second time that’s come up.  It’s low priority, but we might as well start thinking about it.  Catie, do you want to manage the Oryx conversion?” Marc asked.

“I’ll oversee it,” Catie said, “but I thought I’d give it to Artie.  It’s in line with the things he’s studying now.”

“You’re in charge,” Marc said.

“You guys sure do bring them along young,” Admiral Michaels said.

“We just give them the opportunity,” Marc said.  “We need to get more of our pilots to step up and take other responsibilities.”

“They’re doing more than you think,” Fred said.  His tone was a bit testy.  “There are an amazing number of little jobs that have to be taken care of.  I think all the pilots are doing at least fifteen hours a week of work outside their flight time.”

“Sorry,” Marc said.  “I guess we’re getting so big that I no longer have a full picture.”

“That’s why you have us,” Fred said.

“While we’re on our pilots, how are we doing with training?” Marc asked.

“We have our second class of fighter pilots in training now,” Fred said.  “Half the class is made up of pilots we’ve brought in, the other half, Oryx pilots doing cross-training.  I’m glad to hear that Blake and Catie have solved the imbalance in the cargo.  I was afraid we’d have to get more pilots to fly the Oryxes as well as build more Oryxes.”

“Is their training challenging enough?” Marc asked.

“Definitely,” Fred said.  “We’ve just added some more elements to challenge them.”  He smiled at Catie.  “Some of them were thinking they had the flying thing down pat, but we’ve disabused them of that notion.”

“Good,” Marc said.  “We cannot get complacent.  Kal, how’s security?”

“We’ve expanded the Zulu team that we formed after the Russian incident, to include the airport defense.  Some hotshot pilot exposed a gap in our defense,” Kal said as he looked at Catie.  “We’re running more simulations, and we’ll have each class that comes through try to defeat the defenses.  Between that and the Zulu team, we should be on our toes all the time.”

“Thank you,” Marc said.  “Admiral Michaels, what is your sense of the international threat situation?”

“I expect to see more problems from the Russians,” Admiral Michaels said.  “We have limited assets in Russia, so we need to see if we can cultivate a few.  The Chinese seem to be focusing on diplomacy and business, so that should alleviate pressure from them.  As for the U.S., the elections are starting up, which will absorb a lot of the president’s focus.  He has a couple of tough primary challengers, so he’s going to be careful not to create any incidents, but we need to keep a careful eye there.  If he sees some way to influence the election, he’ll take it.”

“I agree,” Samantha said.  “And I think we’ll see more aggressive moves from the Russians, and soon.”

“Then we need to start planning for them,” Marc said.  “Admiral Michaels, can you take the lead there?”

“Yes,” the admiral said.  “I’ll let you know what I need.  I have some contacts I’m expecting to hear from.  They may be able to give us a sense of what might be coming.”

“Everyone, thanks for your time,” Marc said.  “Liz, Catie, and Blake, can you stay back?”

“I think Dr. Metra should stay as well,” Catie said.

Dr. Metra looked surprised but sat back down and waited.

“So, what was the surprise?” Marc asked once everyone else had left the room.

“We had to figure out how to attach the polyglass to the polysteel base,” Catie said.

“Wouldn’t you just glue it?” Blake asked.

“We could have, but we wanted to make it more difficult, or impossible, to open up a comm unit,” Catie said.  “When I asked ADI how that was done before, I was astonished to learn that the Paraxeans printed the whole comm.”

“What do you mean by printed the whole comm?” Marc asked.

“Just that, the shell is monolithic,” Catie said.

“Then how did they get the electronics inside?” Blake asked.

“I mean they printed the whole thing, from polysteel up to the electronics and then the polyglass,” Catie said.

“Isn’t that inefficient?” Marc asked.

“Yes, very,” Catie said.  “Then I checked with ADI on some other things.  They print everything that way, even a Fox, even the Sakira.”

“Why in the world would they do that?” Marc asked, looking to Dr. Metra for an answer.

“Since we encountered the Thoreans and acquired the printing technology, there has been a backlash against the elite,” Dr. Metra said.  “By printing everything, those with superior mathematical and scientific intellect cannot dominate the power positions.  I think you would say that Paraxea has become an egalitarian mediocracy.”

“That’s insane,” Marc said.  “Couldn’t they just have a democracy and use the majority vote to balance things?”

“That was tried multiple times,” Dr. Metra said.  “Paraxea would have a revolution to balance the wealth and power; after about one hundred years, all the wealth would once again be concentrated into the hands of less than one-thousandth of the population.  After another twenty to thirty years, there would be another revolution of sorts to redistribute things; then, after another hundred years, the concentration of wealth would happen again.  The printers have broken the cycle, but have also robbed the Paraxeans of the ability to innovate.  Sooner or later, there will be another revolution, and we’ll see what comes out of it.”

“How do they print a starship?” Blake asked incredulously.

“With a very big printer,” Dr. Metra said.  “Since Paraxea acquired the printers, they are always making a bigger one.  It just requires a bigger set of arms to move the print head.  They are constantly creating bigger printers.”

“But the material waste and all the time involved,” Blake said.

“I can explain,” Catie said.  “They are able to print a material like the foam we used in the Chagas.  They can use it to fill the voids, or they can create walls and even ceilings with it.  The foam’s surface is kind of blobby, but they’re able to make the top surface perfectly flat, and that’s where they print.  When they’re done, they can liquify the foam and remove it if they want, or leave it in place.  The same process we use with our printers.  We just don’t have to use it that much because we make subassemblies and then assemble the final product.  It’s much more efficient.”

“Don’t they use scaffolding?” Blake asked.

“They risk messing up the alignment,” Catie said.  “The printer checks the alignment for each pass, but if you get it too far out of alignment, it has to stop and realign itself.”

“But if they print everything, how was ADI able to help us with making the polysteel and the batteries?” Marc asked.

“She got that information from the Thorean data,” Catie said.  “They’re the ones who developed polysteel and the ceramics we used in our batteries.  They used the printers like we do, only printing the parts they couldn’t manufacture or to do short runs.  And some of the things she referenced were from the other civilizations.  The Paraxeans haven’t innovated much in the technical arenas, but they’ve been active in the medical area.  They’re the ones who developed the nanites.”

“Yes,” Dr. Metra said.  “Paraxeans are obsessed with health and extended life.  It is the one area where you’re allowed to innovate and are rewarded for doing so; that’s why I became a doctor.”

“What do they do with all their mathematicians, engineers, and scientists?” Liz asked.

“Unfortunately, many are relegated to technician roles, supporting the printers and managing the assembly that has to be done,” Dr. Metra said.  “We do have many that work on theoretical studies, but they’ve not been very productive.”

“What a waste,” Marc said.

“Yes, it is,” Dr. Metra agreed.

Chapter 9

Good from Pain

Kal and Catie were grappling under Liz’s tutelage.  Catie had Kal in a chokehold from behind.  He was trying to twist out of it, or at least break her grip, but he was not able to, and he was starting to run out of air.  He tried to push her over, but she braced her feet and held him.  Then he just grabbed her arm and bent in half, pulling Catie’s feet off the ground.  Then he did a shoulder roll, which flipped her to the ground with him rolling over the top.

Catie let go of him and jumped up and did a hard side kick to the side of Kal’s head.

“Oww!” Kal yelped.  “Hey, take it easy girl, we’re only sparring!”

“You broke my arm,” Catie yelled.  Her right arm was hanging limp at her side.

“No way, let me see,” Kal said as he stepped toward Catie.

Catie backed up and kicked his knee.

“What’s up with you?” Kal yelped.

“We’re still sparring,” Catie said as she bounced away from him.

“Break,” Liz yelled.  “Sorry, I just assumed you guys would stop.  Let me see your arm?”

Liz gingerly felt along Catie’s right arm.  “Oww!”

“I think she’s right, it feels broken,” Liz said.  “We’d better get you to the clinic.”

“See, I told you, you brute,” Catie hissed at Kal.

“I’m sorry, but you should have taken me to the ground so I wouldn’t have the weight advantage,” Kal said.  “I didn’t think I would hurt you when I did the roll.”

“We can hold off on the lesson until we get her arm fixed,” Liz said.  “Why don’t you call for a cart, and we’ll drive her over to the clinic.”

“I already called,” Kal said.  “Right when she was kicking my knee.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie was sitting in the treatment room, waiting for the doctor when Dr. Metra walked in.  “Hi, Dr. Metra,” Catie said.  “How did I rate you?”

“I was just available,” Dr. Metra replied.  “Lie down and let me see your arm.”  Dr. Metra pulled the scanner over so it was above Catie’s arm.  The scanner was mounted on an articulating arm so it could be positioned over any part of the bed Catie was lying on.  The bed acted as an imaging array, letting Dr. Metra see what was essentially an X-ray of Catie’s anatomy.

“Ah, yes, it is definitely broken,” Dr. Metra said.  “It didn’t quite break completely, so the ends are still lined up.  I’ll make up some nanites to get in there and start the bones knitting.”

Dr. Metra spent a few minutes at a machine in the corner of the room; then she came back with a syringe.  She injected Catie’s arm with the substance in the syringe.  She spent a few minutes manipulating the controls on the display screen next to the bed.

“What are you doing?” Catie asked.

“I’m directing the nanites to where I want them to go,” Dr. Metra said.

“I thought you could program them to do that for you.”

“I can, but then I would have to use the smart micro nanites, and I really don’t want to waste them.”

“Aren’t we printing enough of them for you?” Catie asked.

“I have some procedures that I’d like to do that would take millions of them,” Dr. Metra said.  “I try to save enough up to do one of them every few months.  I used to get some made on the side when there was free time on the printers, but they never seem to be free anymore.”

“Oh, that’s me,” Catie said.  “I use up all the free time to make parts for ADI.  You should mark yours as high priority, and I’ll do them first.”

“Oh, thanks, but I don’t know if it would be a higher priority than ADI,” Dr. Metra said.

“What did you do before, on Paraxea?”

“Oh, we never had that many issues that required smart micro nanites,” Dr. Metra said.  “But we have so many older patients here who have gone years without proper treatment that I could use all of our capacity on just their issues.”

“You can’t just do what you’re doing now and direct dumb ones with a scanner?  Maybe we could make a few more scanners,” Catie suggested.

“That wouldn’t help,” Dr. Metra said.  “The treatments I’m talking about take up to a week, maybe two.  You can’t have a patient spend that much time in a treatment room, so I save up the micro smart ones so I can inject them and put them in stasis for the treatment.”

“Hmm,” Catie mused.  After a minute, her eyes lit up.  “Why don’t you have smart nanites haul the dumb micro nanites around for you?” she asked.

“What?” Dr. Metra asked.

“Couldn’t you use the regular sized smart nanites to haul around the dumb micro nanites?  They could work like your scanner and place them in the right place, then go back and get more,” Catie said.

“You know, I think that might work,” Dr. Metra said.  “ADI, would you do an analysis on Catie’s idea?”

“Doctor, I have sent three proposals to MADI for you and her to analyze,” ADI said.

“Thank you, ADI,” Dr. Metra said.

“Why did you use ADI instead of MADI?” Catie asked.

“Oh, ADI is much more powerful than MADI is.  MADI is a small special-purpose DI; she’s just for medical records and analysis.  And ADI has much more experience,” Dr. Metra said.

“Okay, I didn’t realize there was that much difference,” Catie said.

“You’re ready to go,” Dr. Metra said as she fitted Catie with a sling.  “I’ve sent instructions to your comm about restrictions on your activities for the next two weeks.”

“Thanks,” Catie said as she hopped off the treatment table.

“No, thank you,” Dr. Metra said.  “I have quite a few patients who will be very happy that you broke your arm today.”

“At least someone is happy,” Catie quipped.

◆ ◆ ◆

“You good?” Liz asked as she met Catie in the waiting room of the clinic.

“Yeah,” Catie said.  “I have to wear the sling for the rest of the day, no running for two days, and no lifting or punching with my arm for two weeks.”

“Did she give you exercises you can do?” Liz asked.

“Yes,” Catie moaned.  “I’m sure they will keep me in shape so you can start beating on me again in two weeks.”

“You sound like you don’t enjoy it,” Liz said.

“I just want to be on the winning end once in a while.”

“You’re getting much better,” Liz said.  “I have to really concentrate to avoid getting nailed.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“What is going on?” the president asked as he entered the situation room in the White House.

“There has been a coup in North Korea,” Director Lassiter said.

“About time those sanctions did something,” the president said.

“Yes, sir,” the director said.

“So what are we worried about?” the president asked.

“China’s response,” Secretary Palmero said.

“Where’s Kim?” the president asked.

“We believe he has fled to China,” Director Lassiter said.  “We haven’t been able to confirm that yet.”

“What do we expect China to do?” the president asked.

“It’s hard to imagine the military moving without a nod from China,” Secretary Palmero said.  “I don’t expect them to do anything yet.”

“So what are we doing here?” the president asked.

“Assessing the situation, looking to see if Russia responds,” Secretary Palmero said.  “It’s a potentially volatile situation.”

Chapter 10

Space Manufacturing

“Uncle Blake, we’re starting up the solar panel plant today,” Catie said.  “Do you want a tour?”

“When is it?” Blake asked.

“After lunch.”

“I’ll be there.”

Fred and Blake followed Nikola and Catie to the inner hub for their tour.  They were all experts at maneuvering in microgravity, so they moved along quickly, using the holds along the corridor to maneuver themselves to the manufacturing section.

“I see you picked one of the spaces next to the vacuum section,” Blake said.

“We have our raw material out there, and we’re storing the pallets there as well.  Vacuum space is low cost, and when it’s out there, you can just back an Oryx into the hub and load it up,” Catie said.  “We designed a special airlock that lets us have a bot take them out and stack them up.”

“That’s efficient,” Fred said.

“Thanks,” Catie said, accepting the compliment.

“Wow, this is compact,” Blake said as they entered the space.  Five technicians were managing the process.  The space being used was only three meters wide and four meters long.

“We can put in three more lines,” Nikola said.  “Then, if you want more, you just duplicate it in another manufacturing cube.”

“Nice, scalability,” Fred said.

“Okay, Catie.  How did you solve the plasma overlap issue?” Blake asked.

“With the two-tenths of a second settling time, we have to run five plasma fields over every point each second.  So, we have an array of plasma guns on a carousel, like we talked about,” Catie said.  “We run them at a slight angle to compensate for the forward motion.  It takes twenty guns to cover the one-meter width, so we only have to have them travel at fifteen centimeters per second.  With the carousel, we have to use forty-five plasma guns.”

“How do you keep it all calibrated?” Blake asked.

“We stop every four hours and recalibrate,” Catie said.  “But everything is carefully balanced so it doesn’t drift.”

“I like that angle idea,” Fred said.  “It simplifies the process even more.  I’ll have to adapt the polyglass process for that, too.”

“Yeah, I just thought of it when one of the technicians complained about the waste when we shut down for calibration or repairs,” Catie said.

“Necessity is always the mother of invention,” Blake said.  “What’s the target for production?”

“We want to hit twenty percent of worldwide demand for solar panels.  That’s forty million panels per year,” Fred said.

“We sure aim high,” Blake said.  “How many lines is that Catie?”

“Two hundred seventy-five, give or take,” Catie said.

“Two hundred fifty-four,” Nikola said.

“You have to account for downtime,” Catie said.  “Assume about ten percent.”

“Oh,” Nikola said.  “I should have known better.”

“So that’s seventy of our manufacturing cubes,” Blake said.  “We have one hundred twenty that are next to the vacuum space and another nine hundred in the hub.”

“That’s a lot of space,” Nikola said.

“Fred, how many to take care of your glass demand?” Blake asked.

“Long term, about the same,” Fred said.  “Plus, we have polysteel panels we have to make up here for the station’s inner walls, it won’t be as much space, but count on at least thirty.”

“I thought the hub was bigger,” Nikola said.

“It is, but the top sixty meters is the manufacturing facility for the Oryxes and other craft, so it’s not in vacuum, but we can still use it.  We just have to take the load through the big airlock,” Blake said.

“What are you thinking about, Uncle Blake?” Catie asked.

“Just wondering if we need to build another section?” Blake said.  “It looks like we have plenty of space right now, but who knows what else we’ll come up with.”

“I’d plan on that next section,” Fred said.  “You know what comes after twenty percent?”

“Yeah, forty percent, then sixty, then eighty, then one hundred,” Blake said.  “I know Marc well.  He’ll be expecting us to fulfill the total demand; he just wants the industries on the surface to have time to shift to other products.”

Chapter 11

Damn Pirates

ADI pinged all the members of the board with an emergency call; the freighter carrying their first load of solar arrays to the Chinese was under attack.

“I’ll grab a Fox and see if I can help,” Catie declared on the comm.

“No, just come to the boardroom,” Marc ordered.

“But . . .”

“We’ve already sent two Foxes,” Marc said.  “Come to the boardroom!”

Catie was out of breath when she reached the boardroom; she had been in the condo when the alarm was sounded.  Her father and Uncle Blake were the only ones there as yet.

“I could help if you let me,” she complained.

“You would have been ten minutes behind the other Foxes,” Blake said.  “They were on standby at the airport, and we don’t have one here in the city.  You cannot always be the hero.”

“I don’t care about being the hero,” Catie said, “I just want to help.”

“And you will,” Marc said, “but with your brain and from here; now settle down while we get an update.  ADI?”

“The Foxes are thirty minutes from the freighter,” ADI said.

“Captain, this is Marc McCormack, we are sending assistance, are you able to hold out?”

“They have fired across my bow,” the freighter captain replied.  “I am afraid that they will sink me if I do not heave to.  These are not normal pirates with such a big cannon.”

“Out fighters are only thirty minutes away,” Marc said.  “Is there any way you can stall them?”

“I can try, but this is not a speedboat, it’s a freighter; it does everything slowly,” the captain replied.

“I understand,” Marc said.  “We are assessing our options.”

“Where are they?” Catie asked.

Blake linked Catie into his comm so she could see the map that showed the freighter.  “They are a long way from anywhere,” he said, “southwest of Wake Island and east of Guam.”

“So the closest help?” Catie asked.

“Two days,” Blake said.

“Can they abandon ship?” Catie asked.

Marc shook his head.

“Can they hide?” Catie asked.

“What good would that do?” Blake asked.

“If we can take out the pirates’ ship, they can’t afford to sink the freighter,” Catie said.  “If the crew can hide until the Foxes get there, the pirates are faced with a choice of either abandoning their attempt or being stuck on that ship while the Foxes prevent them from escaping until help comes.”

“It might work,” Marc said.  “Captain, is there a place where you and the crew can hide or shelter until help arrives?”

“For how long?” the captain asked.

“We’re twenty-seven minutes away,” Marc said.

“I will wait until they fire their cannon again, then I will kill the engines and hide with the crew.  We will be in one of the shipping containers,” the captain said.

“How do we let you know it is safe to come out?” Marc asked.

“Yell my wife’s name, it is Carmelita,” the captain said.

“We’ll call out Carmelita when we get there,” Marc said.

“What are we going to do?” Blake asked.  “We can’t land a Fox on the freighter.”

“I can take a Lynx and set it on its tail,” Catie said.  “We could have some guys rappel down.”

“Won’t they get caught in the backwash?” Kal asked.  He and Liz had entered the room so quietly that nobody had heard them.

“Not if we have enough wind,” Catie said.  “Take it into the water and have it heel up like we did when we were diving for the Chagas.  But then they’d have to use a raft to get to the freighter since we’d only be five to ten meters up.”

“Both of those might work,” Liz said.  “It would be nicer to rappel down than it would be to have to get wet and climb up.”

“I’ll take a team,” Kal said.

“You’ll send a team,” Marc said.  “Anyone besides Catie able to pull that stunt off, of riding a Fox on its tail?”

“Until last week, none of us had thought of it,” Blake said.  I’m sure Kasper has it etched in his brain, but he’s never practiced it.

“Okay, you and Liz,” Marc said.  “She was a helicopter pilot, so she might have some suggestions.”

“My team will meet you at the landing strip,” Kal said.  “Which Lynx do you want to take?”

“Lynx five,” Catie said.  “I just flew it.”

“Go!” Marc said.  “Captain, help is on its way.  Our fighters are twenty-five minutes away, and our boarding crew will be there in thirty-five minutes.”

“Good, they have just fired across my bow again,” the captain said.  “I am cutting my engines.  Pray for us.”

“We will, Captain,” Marc said.

“Pirates are not known for sparing the crew,” Kal said.  “What is he going to do?”

“They’ll take shelter in one of the containers,” Blake said.

“Okay, so now we wait.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Lieutenant Pike here,” the lieutenant called over the comm.  “We have the freighter in sight.”

“Can you see the pirate vessel?” Blake asked.

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said.

“Where is it relative to the freighter?” Blake asked.

“About one hundred meters off the port side.  They’ve sent a Zodiac to board the freighter.  That freighter captain was smart, he didn’t just cut his engines, he cut the starboard one and left the port one going at about quarter speed; the freighter is going in a circle, but with it moving like that and with the rudder free it’s a bitch to board her.”

“Good, then fire a missile in front of the pirate vessel,” Blake ordered.  “Max yield.”

“Yes, sir.  That’ll get their attention,” the lieutenant said.  “Missile away.”

“Do a sonic flyover of the freighter,” Blake ordered.

“Sonic flyover, roger,” the lieutenant said.

“Did any of the pirates get onto the ship?” Blake asked.

“We can’t tell,” the lieutenant said.  “The Zodiac is heading back to their vessel.”

“Apparently they have some kind of cannon on that thing,” Blake said.

“They had a cannon,” Lieutenant Pike said.  “Lieutenant Carrs took it out when they were aiming it at the freighter.”

“Saved me from having to issue the order,” Blake said.  “Thank you, Lieutenant Carrs.”

“A pleasure, sir,” Lieutenant Carrs said.  “My first time to use the plasma cannon in action.”

“She’s going to lord it over us for weeks, sir,” Lieutenant Pike said.

“Months,” Lieutenant Carrs said.

“We’ll see if we can give you a chance to use yours,” Blake said.  “You did get to fire a missile.”

“Yes, sir, but standoff weapons don’t have the same feel,” Lieutenant Pike said.

“I know what you mean.  What’s the status of the freighter?”

“Still going in circles, sir.  We cannot see anyone on her, but I wouldn’t trust these pirates.”

“We aren’t,” Blake said.  “We have a team coming.”

“How are they going to board her?” Lieutenant Carrs asked.

“Watch and learn,” Blake said.

“Apparently Catie’s stunt hasn’t gotten to the other pilots,” Kal whispered to Blake.

“Or they don’t see the application for this situation,” Blake whispered back.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie’s Lynx arrived on the scene twenty minutes later.

“We’ve got a good breeze coming from the east,” Liz said as they flew over the freighter.

“Are you guys ready?” Catie asked over the comm.  The main cabin of the Lynx had the two rows of front seats removed, and the bulkheads were extended from the floor to create a space where they could stand when the Lynx went vertical.

“We’re at the airlock; the inner door is open,” Sergeant Mathers reported.  “You’re clear to go vertical.”

“Remember, you have to drop rapidly for the first eight meters, so you don’t get sucked into the engine intake,” Liz cautioned.

“We’re all well aware of that,” Sergeant Mathers said.

“Okay, going vertical,” Catie announced as she nosed the Lynx up.  She kept nosing it up until it was at 60 degrees; there the stiff breeze against its wings was strong enough to keep the nose up.  Catie tweaked the jet forward until it was hovering over the freighter.

“You are clear to go,” Liz announced.

Sergeant Mathers opened the second airlock door; he had tied a rope to it so that it wouldn’t get ripped from his hands as he allowed it to open up against the Lynx’s side.  He patted the guy next to him on the helmet.  That guy immediately backed out of the Lynx and let his body drop on the rappelling line. He swung toward the engines for a few meters, then his downward velocity took over, and his line became more vertical.  He closed on the freighter’s deck quickly.  Two meters before he reached the deck, he arrested his descent, slowing until his feet hit the deck.  His knees bent as he released the line.  The second man was already halfway down.  The first man down brought his M4A1 up and scanned the area to cover for the next man coming down.

In one minute, there were six members of the incursion team on the deck of the freighter.  “We’re good,” Sergeant Mathers announced.  “Thanks for the ride.”

Catie leveled the Lynx and flew it into a pattern with the two Foxes.

“Neat trick,” Lieutenant Pike said.

Sergeant Mathers’ team quickly spread out and started to search the freighter.  They reached the bridge without finding anyone.  One of his team brought the engines back up to normal power and corrected the course.

“Stay here and watch the bridge; Jones, you stay and cover him,” Sergeant Mathers ordered.  The four of them moved on to continue searching the ship.  “We’ve got the freighter back on course,” he announced.  “We haven’t seen any hostiles yet.”

“Copy,” Lieutenant Pike said.  “We’re covering you as best we can; the pirate vessel is sitting five hundred meters off your port side.”

“Copy,” Sergeant Mathers said.  He and his team continued to work their way through the ship.

“The ship is clear,” Sergeant Mathers said after his team had spent an hour searching.

“Call the crew out,” Kal said.  “You are stuck on the ship until it docks.  I’d like you to assume that there is a hostile hidden there somewhere and maintain a guard in the engine room and the bridge.”

“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Mathers said.  “Jones, call the crew out.”

Jones used the ship’s PA system to announce, “Carmelita says all is clear.  Come out.”

He made the announcement twice before one of the containers opened, and the crew and captain emerged.  Sergeant Mathers immediately ran over to them.  “I have two people on the bridge,” he informed the captain.  “We’ll have one follow your engineer to the engine room.  I’ve been ordered to stay with you and keep guard.”

“Thank you,” the captain said.  “What about the pirates?”

“Our planes have them under guard,” Blake said.  “They’re going to keep them in place until the authorities show up.”

“Good, I would like to see these pirates hang,” the captain said.

KABOOM!

“What happened?” Sergeant Mathers asked.

“The pirates’ boat blew up,” Lieutenant Pike said.

“Any survivors?” Blake asked.

“Searching,” Lieutenant said, “but I doubt it.”

“Keep looking, I’d like to be able to interrogate one,” Blake ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll send relief for you guys in six hours,” Blake said.  “Until then, I want you to protect the freighter.  I’m not sure what kind of pirates these are.”

“Copy that,” Lieutenant Pike said.

“Catie, come on back,” Blake ordered.

“On our way,” Catie acknowledged.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi Sam,” Catie said.  “Are you heading to the meeting?”

“Yes,” Samantha said.  “I was in the ladies’ room; those four are really going at it.”

“Those four?” Liz asked.

“Blake, Kal, the admiral, and Marc,” Samantha said.  “They’re just going in circles.”

“I assume Daddy thinks it's the Russians,” Catie said.

“Yes, he was suspecting the Americans as well until the boat blew up,” Samantha said.  She opened the door for Catie and Liz to precede her into the room.

“The woman of the hour!” Blake called out as Catie walked in.

“Just doing my part,” Catie said as she blushed a little.  “What have you guys figured out?”

“Not much,” Marc said.  “There were no survivors from the explosion.”

“That’s too bad,” Liz said.  “We could have learned a lot if one had made it.  I’m sure a survivor would have been willing to talk after they blew the ship up under him.”

“Did the freighter captain recognize the accent?” Catie asked.

“They weren’t using any verbal communication,” Blake said.  “Just the two cannon shots across the bow.”

“Do you really think there’s one of them still on the freighter?” Catie asked.

“I wouldn’t bet against it,” Kal said.  “Their Zodiac was against the hull when the Foxes showed up.  Someone could have climbed up before they got there.”

“He’s got to be feeling lonely right now,” Samantha said.

“Let’s talk about what’s next.  Kal’s guys have the freighter under control,” Marc said.

“What do you think they were after?” Liz asked.

“I’m assuming the solar cells,” Marc said.  “We have twenty containers on that ship.”

“Are you sure they were after them?” Samantha asked.  “That ship was carrying over five thousand containers.”

“Yes, but most of them are carrying raw material heading to China.  I think it’s too big of a coincidence that the first ship we send with solar cells is attacked by the most advanced pirates anyone has seen in the last ten years,” Marc said.

“Okay, so say that’s what they were after, what do we expect them to do next?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“To answer that, we need to know who they were,” Blake said.

“The Russians,” Catie and Marc said together.

“Why?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Because they don’t want the Chinese to gain the fusion technology or to become more energy independent,” Marc said.

“Why would the fusion agreement have anything to do with the attack?” the admiral asked.

“It would be logical to assume that we were shipping parts for the reactor on the ship; it would have been easy to coordinate,” Samantha said.

“We are shipping parts of the reactor on that ship,” Marc said.

Everyone looked at Marc in surprise.  “We are?” Blake asked.

“Yes, the containment vessels for twenty reactors are on the ship,” Marc said.  “I kept it quiet, hoping word wouldn’t get out.”

“You’re lucky the Russians were greedy,” the admiral said, “otherwise they would have just sunk the ship.”

“Will they change tactics and sink it now?” Marc asked.

“We’re keeping the Foxes flying with it to prevent that,” Blake said.

“What about a submarine?” Liz asked.

“That would make it obvious that it was the Russians,” Admiral Michaels said.  “I don’t think they’d want to be that obvious.”

“I agree,” Samantha said.  “It would unite the UN against them, and they can’t afford that with all the instability in the oil markets.  An embargo on Russian oil would not be hard to do with the Saudis pumping at the rate they are.”

“Why are the Saudis pumping so much oil?” Catie asked.

“They’re assuming the price is going to continue to go down,” Samantha said.  “They’re trying to rake in as much cash as they can now, as well as push the price down to make the economics of converting less attractive.”

“Let’s move on.  Assuming it was the Russians, how do we protect future shipments?” Marc asked.

“We could land them directly in China,” Liz suggested.

“We’d have to have them create a ramp for us,” Catie said.  “We can’t afford to go back to thirty percent loads.”

“I’m sure they would be happy to,” Blake said.  “We could ship the parts for a polysteel ramp and assemble it over there.”

“It really makes us inefficient,” Catie said.  “We’d have to fly the Oryxes back here to ferry our upbound cargo to the station.”

“We could get a lot of the cargo in China,” Liz suggested.

“I don’t want to be that dependent on the Chinese,” Marc said.

“Or that much in bed with them,” the admiral added.

“We don’t want to be escorting every freighter with a couple of Foxes,” Marc said.  “It’s a twelve-day trip.”

“We may have to,” Kal said.  “We can post people on the ships, but if they’re going to try to sink them, we need to have air support.”

“I have an idea,” Liz said.  “Why don’t you let me and Catie work on it for a couple of days; then we can go over it?”

“What idea?” Marc asked.

“I’d like to make sure it’s not completely insane before I share,” Liz said.

“Two days,” Marc said.

“Got it,” Liz said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“What’s your plan?” Catie asked as she followed Liz out of the boardroom.

“A Hover Fox,” Liz said.

“Hover?”

“Yes.  You know that the F35 has a version that can do a vertical takeoff,” Liz said.

“No,” Catie replied.

“How could you miss that?”

“Didn’t look at the F35,” Catie said.  “It’s not that good in a dogfight, and the Foxes are a lot more like an F18 anyway.”

“Well, it does,” Liz said.  “I think we should be able to do something similar to the Fox.”

“Do you want to go to our condo to work on it?” Catie asked.  Catie had moved out of her father’s condo and into one next door with Liz.  It was the same arrangement they had on the space station, and Catie liked the additional freedom it gave her.  Her father wasn’t so sure it was a good idea but was being a good soldier.  And the friendship between Catie and Liz was good for Catie, helping her mature and be more social with others.

They made their way to the condo and cleared the dining table.  After syncing their comms, Liz brought up the plans for the F35 VTO model.  “See, it rotates its engines and has another big blower here behind the cockpit.  Most of the weight is in the back, so it balances okay,” Liz explained.

“But it looks like it would take some time to switch from VTO to normal flying,” Catie said.  “That could get you into trouble.”

“That’s why you’re here,” Liz said.  “I know we can copy this, but we should be able to do better.”

“We have no shortage of power in the advanced Foxes with the fusion reactor,” Catie said.  “So, we don’t have to have such a big opening for the airflow; we could just pop up another air scoop.”

“We have room behind the cockpit,” Liz said.  “That’s essentially just dead space.”

“Yes, and let me check this out,” Catie said.  “ADI, can a gyroscope be used to help the jet stay level?”

“Yes, Cer Catie,” ADI answered.  “And if you use a pair of gyroscopes, you can minimize the precession.”

“What’s precession?” Catie asked.

“There’s a good video of it on the internet,” ADI said.  She started the video playing.  “You can see that the bicycle wheel is hung on a string by an extended axle.  When it is held vertical and spun up very fast, you can let go of the axis, and it will stay vertical.  But you’ll notice that it rotates around the vertical axis.  That wandering rotation is called precession; it’s the gyroscope countering the forces that want to pull it horizontal.  With two gyroscopes spinning in opposite directions, you balance out the precession.”

“I guess that explains why you can ride a bike,” Liz said.

“It does help, although you have to use your sense of balance to offset the precession since the tires rotate in the same direction,” ADI explained.

“If we put two gyroscopes, one in each of the forward sections of the Fox’s wings, would that help it make a vertical takeoff?” Catie asked.

“They would have to have sufficient mass to develop enough torque to do that,” ADI said, “but yes, that would help.”

Catie and Liz worked with ADI for several hours, modeling the various configurations.  It was two a.m. before they came up with a design that they thought would be worth prototyping.

“Okay, we’ll use magnetic couplings to spin the gyroscopes up and to stop them,” Catie summarized.  “We have a small intake behind the cockpit that raises up to pull in air and a fan pushing it down, so we get enough lift to get off the ground.  Once we’re up, we can start transitioning to horizontal flight mode, and once we’re over a hundred knots, we can shut down the fan and close the air scoop.”

“Then you can hang around or blast off at full acceleration,” Liz said.  “When do you have to shut the gyros off?”

“You just need to shut them down when you want to be able to maneuver fast,” Catie said.  “They’ll work to keep you stable, which is nice, but not so good in a dog fight.”

“Let’s hit the sack,” Liz said.  “Tomorrow, we can figure out how to actually build one.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Good morning,” Catie said as Liz walked into the kitchen at ten o’clock.

“Morning, how long have you been up?” Liz asked.

“Since six,” Catie said.

“We didn’t go to bed until after two,” Liz said.

“Four hours sleep isn’t too bad for me,” Catie said.

“I can survive on six, but I really need eight,” Liz said.  “Anyway, what have you been doing?”

“Planning how to prototype the Hover Fox,” Catie said.

“And?”

“We can print all the parts we need; someone else can figure out how to manufacture them.”

“Can we afford the printer time?”

“Yes, it’s only one day,” Catie said.  “We can have someone pull the nozzles off the engines while the new nozzles are printing, and they can cut the holes for the fan and gyros too.  Power is easy to run, so we just put it all back together when we’re done.”

“What about electronics?” Liz asked.

“The Fox’s sensors already take care of all the feedback we need; we just let the computer manage the power to the fan and gyros, and add a control for the angle of the jet nozzles.”

“So, how many days?”

“A week,” Catie said.  “Might be a bit rough, but it’ll be a great proof of concept.  I think we need to manufacture them new instead of trying to convert existing Foxes.  Otherwise, we’re risking the integrity of the hull.”

“Okay, but it’ll fly?”

“Sure, just wouldn’t want to get into a dog fight in it,” Catie said.  “You know we’re doing an awful lot of work to avoid using a gravity drive, that and upsizing the fusion reactor.”

“A what?”

“A gravity drive,” Catie replied.

“What is a gravity drive, and why haven’t I heard of it before?” Liz asked.

“It uses the gravimetric waves from planets and suns to push itself,” Catie explained.  “It only works inside the gravity well, but the sun’s gravity well goes out to about fifty AUs; of course it gets pretty weak out there, but you’re good to at least Jupiter.”

“I’ve read about them in science fiction books,” Liz said, “but we have one?”

“Yes, all our satellites use gravity drives,” Catie explained, “and the engines on the Sakira are gravity drives.  It’s too big to move with space engines.”

“Okay, so why don’t I know this?”

“Daddy’s compartmentalization,” Catie said.  “They’re a huge secret, and he’s limited who knows.  I forgot you didn’t know.”

“Oops,” Liz said.

“I don’t see how it makes a difference; you already know about the Sakira.”

“Let’s hope your father sees it that way.  Where would we mount them?”

“Same place we’re planning to put the gyroscopes.”

“Then where would we put the gyroscopes?” Liz asked.

“I don’t think we would need them.”

“Any reason not to use gravity drives besides the secrecy thing?”

“We have to use a molecular printer to make them,” Catie said.

“Let’s ask your father.  He’ll want an update anyway.”

“Okay,” Catie said.  She shifted focus to her HUD for a few seconds.  “We’re on at one o’clock.”

“Good,” Liz said.

“I’m going to have them start printing the new engine nozzles,” Catie said.  “We’re going to need them either way we go.”

“Smart move,” Liz said.  “Are you up for a run?”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Catie replied, raising her eyebrows to make the point.

“Yeah, well, we’re going to see how well you run on just four hours of sleep.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Which one should we do?” Catie asked her father.  She and Liz had just spent an hour going over the options with Blake and him.

“Can we do both?” Blake asked.

“We have to use a molecular printer to make the gravity drives,” Catie said.

“What part of the gravity drive do we have to print?” Marc asked.

“The whole thing,” Catie said.  “We don’t know how it works.  We don’t even know enough about it to take one apart and put it back together.”

“What are we using gravity drives in?” Blake asked.

“The satellites,” Catie said.  “We’ve been expanding the array for months now.”

“Right, I forgot about that,” Blake said.  “Why are we doing that?” he asked Marc.

“Planning ahead,” Marc said.  His face indicated that was all he was going to say.

“Shouldn’t we learn more about them?” Liz asked.

“We have Catie’s guy working on gravity drives, but it’s taking a long time,” Marc said.

“He’s not my guy!” Catie interrupted.

“Right, anyway, he has the theory down pretty well, but the practical application is a ways off,” Marc finished.

“Why don’t you give him a working drive to start from?” Blake asked.

“We’re still keeping the Sakira a secret,” Marc said, “but we might have to.  Up to now, we’ve been able to guide our scientists along with the information from ADI.  And it’s paid off with some better results, like the flexible polysteel.”

“You might need to change that,” Blake said.  “I still think we should do both designs.”

“I’d like to,” Marc said.  “But I really don’t want people realizing we have gravity drives.”

“I could tell them they were a gyroscope,” Catie said.  “They’re almost the same size, and if we put them in a sphere like the gyroscopes, nobody would know.”

“Who would assemble the drive?” Marc asked.

“We have to print them anyway; we can just print them in the sphere,” Catie said.  “It will only take a little longer.”

“Okay, do it,” Marc said.  “When will it be ready?”

“Tuesday,” Catie replied.

“Liz flies the test,” Blake said.

“Why?” Catie squealed.

“Because she’s a helicopter pilot,” Blake said.  “She’s better qualified to deal with anything that might happen.”

“Okay,” Catie said with a pout, “but I get to fly it once we have it tested.”

“Of course,” Blake said.  “Besides, it might give someone a chance to beat you in a Fox and spoil your perfect record.”

“Not a chance!” Catie shot back.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Sir, our assets in Delphi City have informed us that there are several Chinese scientists visiting the city,” Director Lassiter said to the president.

“What are they doing there?” the president asked.

“We’ve identified two of them as nuclear physicists,” Director Lassiter said.  “We assume they’re reviewing the fusion reactor design.”

“Secretary Palmero, can you find a way to let them know how displeased we will be if the Chinese were to be given access to the fusion reactors,” the president said.

“I can pass the message along,” she replied, “but I don’t believe they will care what we think.”

“How can we make them care?” the president asked.

“Sir, we have limited options,” Secretary Palmero replied.

“We can lock them up in that city of theirs,” the president said.

“The Russians are already trying that,” Defense Secretary Barrows said.

“Do you really believe it was the Russians?” the president asked.

“The attack was too sophisticated for just average pirates, and the fact that it was on a freighter carrying solar arrays from Delphi City,” Director Lassiter said.

“Maybe we should encourage the Russians?” the president said.

“We already backed their denial of involvement,” Director Lassiter said.

“We could just tell Delphi that we’re interested in acquiring their fusion reactors,” Secretary Palmero said.  “If we buy them, there are fewer for the Chinese to buy.”

“No! I want you to find a way to choke them,” the president said.  “I’m not kowtowing to that idiot, McCormack.”

Chapter 12

Visitors

“Daddy, is it okay if I bring the twins up to stay a week?” Catie asked.

“What does their mother say?”

“It’s kind of her idea.  Well, the twins are pestering her, wanting to come up, and she has next week off, so I think getting them out of her hair so she can have a real vacation is the idea.”

“Where will they stay?”

“With me; Liz is going to stay at the cabin in ring one while they’re here.”

“I’m okay with it as long as you take responsibility for them.  No getting Sam to watch them or cook for you.”

“I’ll take care of them,” Catie said with a grimace.  She had thought she would get Sam to help with meals, but she’d find a way to cope; they might be eating out a lot.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie and Natalia were waiting for the twins at the Delphi City airstrip.  Catie had gotten the pilot slot for the Lynx that was ferrying people down and then up for the day.  There were plenty of seats for the flight up.

“They’re almost here,” Catie said.

“They’d better get here soon, or I’ll have to defend you against all those passengers that are wondering why their pilot is hanging out here instead of in the cockpit flying them up to the station,” Natalia said.

“Bunch of crybabies, we aren’t even scheduled to depart for another fifteen minutes,” Catie said.  “Anyway, here they are.”

Aalia and Prisha came bounding out of the passenger terminal, followed by their mother, Dr. Sharmila.

“Hey Catie, hey Nattie,” they called out as they ran up. One hugged Catie, and the other hugged Natalia, then they switched.

“Hey, you two are getting taller,” Natalia said.

“Yep,” one twin said.  “We’re five feet tall now!”

“And you’re wearing different outfits,” Catie said.  Earlier, the twins always wore the same outfits, making it impossible to tell them apart.

“Mummy made us promise to dress differently for the whole trip,” the twin said.

“I’m trying to encourage them to be different people,” Dr. Sharmila said as she made it to Catie.

“We are different people, but we’re twins,” the twins said.

“You are, well, sometimes I think I’m seeing double,” Natalia said as she looked between the twins.

“The one in red is Prisha,” Dr. Sharmila said.

“Un-uh,” the twins said.

“Oh my, did you two change in the bathroom?” Dr. Sharmila scolded.

“Yes, I like red today . . . And I like blue,” the twins said.

“Pshaw, I’m so glad you’re willing to let them stay,” Dr. Sharmila said.  “They’ve been bouncing off the walls for a week.”

“We have plenty of walls for them to bounce off of,” Catie said.  “And a few ceilings too.”

“Yay!” the twins squealed.

“I’ll take good care of them,” Catie said.

“I know you will,” Dr. Sharmila said.  “Now girls, remember Catie is in charge.”

“We remember,” the twins said.

“Let’s get you on the plane,” Catie said.  “We’ll talk to you tonight,” she added to Dr. Sharmila.

“Bye, girls!”

“Bye, Mummy!”

“I’ve got their bags,” Natalia said.  She grabbed the two bags and took them to the cargo door of the Lynx, handing them up to the cargo handler who was waiting for them impatiently.

Catie led the twins into the Lynx’s main cabin and got them seated.  She had them settled in by the time Natalia made it to her seat.  Sophia was pinging Catie’s comm while she was settling the twins in.  Catie hadn’t been aware that Sophia was coming to the space station, but wasn’t surprised since her mom was up there working right now.

“Hi, Sophia,” Catie said as she waved to her.  “We’ll talk after we dock; I have to fly us there.”

“Okay.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Can you take it from here?” Catie asked her copilot after she had finished docking the Lynx with the space station.

“Sure, I’ve got it, go play hostess,” her copilot said.

Catie barely made it into the main cabin before the airlock was opened.  The twins were already lined up, waiting to get off.  They were doing little somersaults in place, kicking off the deck and rotating so they could kick off the ceiling of the Lynx.  The other passengers were not looking particularly happy and were giving them plenty of room.  Jennie, the flight attendant, was standing between the twins and the other passengers, trying to assure everyone that everything was alright.

“Can you two settle down,” Catie said.  “You’ll have plenty of time to play around in microgravity while you’re up here.”

“Sorry,” they said together.  “Why haven’t they opened the airlock yet?”

“Probably because they’re worried about two crazies bouncing around in here,” Natalia said.  She’d finally worked her way through the other passengers.

The twins both grabbed a stanchion and brought their feet back to the deck.  As they settled in, the airlock opened.

“Please let the passengers with microgravity experience deplane first,” Jennie announced.  “Then we will provide assistance to those of you who need it.”

The twins darted through the airlock, followed by about half the passengers, although at a more sedate pace.

“Jennie, do you need any help?” Catie asked.

“No, we have a couple of people coming off once all of you spacers clear out,” Jennie replied.  “We'll be fine.  Go take care of those two before they break the space station.”

Catie waved goodbye and went on into the docking ring.  There she met up with the twins, Natalia, and Sophia.  They had moved to one of the unused bays, and the twins were literally bouncing off the walls.  They were playing tag, one chasing the other, and trying to anticipate the subtle direction changes her quarry made when she pushed off the wall.

“Hi, Sophia,” Catie said, ignoring the twins.  “How long are you up for?”

“I don’t know,” Sophia said.  “At least a week.  Depends on how long Mom decides to stay up here.  Do they ever stop?” she asked, indicating the twins who were still bouncing off the walls.

“When they sleep,” Catie said.  “I hope they don’t drive me nuts.”

“I think it might be too late on that,” Natalia teased.

Sophia laughed, “Call me when you have time.  Chris is up here staying with her dad, so we should do lunch.”

“Okay,” Catie said.  “Maybe tomorrow or Wednesday.  Come on you two, let’s get you settled in.”

“Can we go to the obstacle course?” they asked, referring to the top of the hub, where Kal had installed a microgravity obstacle course.

“Not now,” Catie said.  “We need to get you set up at my cabin, then we have to have lunch.  Then maybe we’ll go to the obstacle course.”

“Okay,” the twins said; clearly they didn’t think they should have to wait before going to the obstacle course.

◆ ◆ ◆

After getting the twins settled, Catie and Natalia took them to the obstacle course, hoping that they would burn off enough energy that they would settle down during the evening, and everyone could enjoy their dinner.  Catie had reserved the course earlier and was surprised that it was rarely booked.  The twins opted to just wear shipsuits; they thought that using the exosuit with its thrusters was too easy and only for lightweights.

“Finally!” the twins yelled as they entered the course.  Aalia tagged Prisha, yelling, “you’re it,” as she pushed off the floor.  She immediately flipped over before she hit the ceiling and pushed off of it at a steep angle.  Prisha was rocketing behind her, barely missing Aalia when she pushed off the ceiling.

Prisha did a late flip and pushed off the ceiling after her sister.  Aalia barely edged by one of the obstacle walls, dropping out of sight.  She came rocketing out from behind it going horizontal to the floor towards another wall.  Prisha bounced off the wall Aalia had edged by and pushed off to a second wall to line herself up on an intercept course.  Aalia reached down with her hand and pushed off the floor to change her vector.

“Can you believe those two?” Natalia asked.  “They have more moves than a bird has feathers.  If I could learn half of them, you’d never catch me.”  Natalia was referring to Catie’s and her training sessions on the obstacle course.

“That’s a good idea,” Catie said.  “ADI, do we have enough cameras in here to track the twins through the course?”

“Yes, Cer Catie.  There are cameras in the face of each wall,” ADI said.  “Cer Kal wanted to be able to analyze the mistakes his team makes when they are training with their exosuits.”

“Good, please record those two so we can analyze how they push off and change directions,” Catie instructed.

“The cameras are always recording,” ADI said.  “The footage is compressed using a predicting algorithm.  As long as the subjects are following predictable arcs, a math equation replaces the video.”

“How well do the twins compress?” Catie asked.

“The compression algorithm is only fifty percent as efficient on their videos as normal,” ADI said.

“How are the videos of Natalia and me?”

“Your videos are within nominal parameters of the algorithm,” ADI said.

“I think she just told us that we aren’t that good,” Natalia said.

“Well, we’ll have to see if we can fix that,” Catie said.  “Plan on doing some studying tonight and an early workout.”

“How early?” Natalia asked.

“They sleep nine or ten hours, so I suggest we meet here at o-six-hundred,” Catie said.

“You would say that,” Natalia said.  “You do know that some of us actually need sleep.”

“Then go to bed early, or would you rather I work with Liz?”

“No way, I want to be able to bust her ass on this course,” Natalia said.

◆ ◆ ◆

That night after dinner, Catie had the twins watch a movie while she studied the video of all their moves.  ADI had analyzed the video and identified 84 basic moves that the twins used during their play session.  The next morning, Catie met Natalia by the obstacle course to review them.

“Eighty-four moves,” Natalia complained.  “How can there be so many?”

“There are even more variations,” Catie said.  “But these are the basics.  And it’s not that bad.  There are four different ways they land with their feet, left-forward, right-forward, and then the same but further apart,” Catie said as she demonstrated each move.  They were in the gravity section close to the course.

“Okay, I can remember that,” Natalia said.

“Then they land with their feet more than hip-width apart, again, left or right foot forward.  That makes six basic landings,” Catie continued to explain.  “Then, from each of those landings, they can vector off in eight directions, forward, back, left, right, and then forty-five degrees from each of those.”

“Boy, those girls are sneaky,” Natalia said.  “No wonder I can never catch them.”

“Yeah, now watch this,” Catie said.  “See how they just bounce off as soon as they touch?  Then look here: They touch and bend their knees, so they preserve their momentum until the last moment when they decide which way to push off.”

“Oh yeah, and when I’m chasing them, I think they’re going to bounce off right away,” Natalia said.  “They even do a little juke there.”  Natalia pointed to the small head fake that Aalia was doing before she finally pushed off.

“Amazing that they just intuited this themselves,” Catie said.  “Then, there are the hand push-offs they do when they’re just changing their vector a little.”

“Even I do those,” Natalia said.

“Yes, but are you as subtle about it as they are?”

“Nobody is.”

“And the last set of moves are their flips and twists.  Forward and backward, then flip twist, and twist flip.  With all the permutations, you get eighty-four moves.”

“We’ll never be able to keep up with them,” Natalia said.

“We don’t need to keep up with them; we just need to be able to stay ahead of Kal and Liz,” Catie said.  “Let’s go in and just practice the moves by themselves for today.  Tomorrow we can try to actually do them while we’re moving.”

◆ ◆ ◆

On Wednesday, Catie met Sophia for lunch.

“Where are the twins?” Sophia asked.

“Liz is watching them for me,” Catie replied.  “They’re having a quick lunch before heading to the obstacle course.”

“Those two are nuts!”

“They’re driving me a bit nuts,” Catie said.  “I have to take them to the obstacle course twice a day so they burn off enough energy that they will do their homework, or watch a movie.”

“There’s Chris,” Sophia said as Chris made her way to their table.

“Hey, Catie, it’s been a while,” Chris said as she sat down.  “What are you two talking about?”

“The twins,” Sophia said.

“Are they driving you nuts?” Chris asked.

“A bit, but they’re still a lot of fun,” Catie said.  “I’m teaching them how to fly, and they’re teaching me how to maneuver in microgravity.”

“I thought you already knew that,” Chris said.

“I do, but not like they do.  It's amazing how they maneuver!  I had their moves analyzed; they have eighty-four moves that they use,” Catie said.  “Can you believe they figured all that out by instinct?”

“That is amazing,” Chris said.  “It’s nice to learn things like that when you’re really young.  Anyway, have you ordered yet?”

“No, Catie just got here, and I was waiting for both of you,” Sophia said.

“Did Sophia tell you that I’m moving up here?” Chris asked.

“No, I was waiting for you to tell her,” Sophia said.

“You are, full time?” Catie asked.

“Yes, Mom and Dad both got assigned up here; Mom works with the Zelbars, and Dad is working in the VIT fabrication plant.”

“That’s cool, we can get together when we’re working then,” Catie said.

“And we can hang out,” Chris said.  “Don’t you ever have fun?”

“Yes, I have fun,” Catie said to defend herself.  “I get to fly a lot, I’m going to the obstacle course with the twins and chasing them around, I’m having lunch with you guys.”

“When’s the last time you went to a party?” Chris asked.

“Christmas,” Catie said.

“So, one party in a month,” Chris said.  “I can see you’re overwhelmed with fun.”

“Parties aren’t the only way to have fun,” Catie said.

“How about a boyfriend?” Chris asked.

“There’s nobody I’m interested in,” Catie said.

“How would you know?  When was the last time you met a guy your age?” Chris asked.

“At the Christmas party,” Sophia answered for Catie.

“I see I have my work cut out for me,” Chris laughed.  “Now Sophia, how’s Chaz doing?”

“He’s doing fine,” Sophia said.  “He’s starting to take some engineering classes at school, so he’s busy a lot.”

“Are you doing okay with that?  Him being busy?” Chris asked.

“I am, I’m kind of busy too, with the Gazette and my studies,” Sophia said.

“Is he behaving himself?” Chris asked.

“Oh yeah!” Sophia said.  “Too much.  Dad made a comment about how many spies he has working for him; it kind of scared Chaz.”

“I’d guess so,” Chris said.  “Was your father worried?”

“I don’t know,” Sophia said.  “He said it like a joke, but you can guess how it went over.”

Chris laughed.  “You and Catie are the two most intimidating girls to date,” she said.  “You both have fathers who can make a boy just disappear if they decide they don’t like the way he’s treating their daughter.”

“Don’t say that in front of Chaz!” Sophia scolded.  “He’s nervous enough as it is.”

“I’ll bet,” Chris said.  “You know you’re going to have to be the one to take charge and move things along.”

“What do you mean?” Sophia asked.  Catie leaned forward, very interested in the answer as well.

“Well, you’re going to have to control the temperature of your relationship--how long you kiss, is he allowed under your shirt, things like that,” Chris said.

“Ooh, that takes the fun out of it,” Sophia said.

“You’ll have to think of ways to make it fun, but he’s going to be so cautious you’ll be an old maid before you French kiss,” Chris said.

Catie was obviously looking up French kiss in her HUD, and when she got to the definition, she grimaced.  “Who would want to do that?”

“You will,” Chris said.  “Just wait.”

Their food finally came, and the conversation settled down while they ate.  Catie had a burger and fries, while Chris and Sophia both had a salad.

“How can you eat like that and stay thin?” Sophia asked Catie.

“I work out two hours a day,” Catie said.

“Two hours! How do you have time for anything else?” Sophia asked.

“It’s just two hours, and there are twenty-four in a day,” Catie said.  “Besides, I do a lot of email while I’m running.”

“You’re a little insane,” Sophia said.

“How are you doing with VIT?” Chris asked.  “I just see your assignments, but we never talk about work.”

“I’m doing okay,” Catie said.  “It took me a while to get the work under control.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sophia asked.  “I can’t imagine anything that would take you long to get under control.”

“There was just so much code to deal with,” Catie said.  “The first six weeks, I was spending almost fifty hours a week to get through the test assigned to me.  I’ve finally got it down to the twenty hours a week it’s supposed to be.”

“Gawd, I’m definitely not doing computer science,” Sophia said.  “If it’s that hard for you, I’d never be able to do it.”

“It’s not that hard now,” Catie said.  “It just took me time to learn all the code.”

Chris was laughing hard, “Catie, you do know that you’re supposed to just run the test and identify the defects.”

“Of course I do,” Catie said.  “But you have to read the code to find the defect, and since you’re right there, you might as well suggest a change.”

“No!” Chris laughed.  “You’re supposed to point out where the code fails the test, not where in the code the defect is.  No wonder they all fight over who gets you as their tester.”

“I don’t understand,” Catie said.

“You’re doing their job, debugging the code is for the software engineer; we’re just the testers.  We run the test, identify the failures; they are supposed to figure out where the defect in the code is and how to fix it.  No wonder you had to work so hard.”

“Just run the test,” Catie said disdainfully, “that would be boring.”

“It is,” Chris said, “but it really is easy.  They’re having me review the changes now.  That way, I can start to learn about how the code is written.  I wondered why they didn’t have you sit in on the reviews.”

“So they’re laughing at me,” Catie said.

“No, they’re fighting over you,” Chris said.  “You should probably talk to the manager and see if he’ll start giving you actual coding assignments.  The engineers tell me that defect isolation and fixing are harder than writing code in the first place.  Especially when it’s not your code you’re fixing.”

“I guess I should,” Catie said.  “I’m starting to get bored with the defects.  Some of them are so stupid.”

“The engineer I work for says they are mostly typos and brain farts,” Chris said.

“Brain farts, that’s gross,” Sophia said.

“But very descriptive,” Chris said with a grin.  “Okay, back to boys, are there any living up here?”

“Artie is up here a lot, Jason too,” Catie said.

“I mean boys we’d want to date,” Chris said.

“Then no,” Catie responded.

“Well, then someone who has some control over assignments needs to figure out how to get more up here,” Chris said.

“What?” Catie squeaked.

“Come on Girl, put that brain of yours to work.  Use your connections to get the right people transferred up here, those who have boys we might like,” Chris said.

◆ ◆ ◆

By the end of the week, Natalia and Catie had improved on their microgravity maneuvering skills enough that the two of them could catch one of the twins, that is, when it was two against one.  Now they were ready for Liz and Kal.  They arranged to meet the two of them at the obstacle course.

“So, what do you want to show me?” Kal asked.

“First, I wanted to show you the reservation list for the course,” Catie said.

“You could have done that in an email,” Kal said.

“I wanted to make a point,” Catie said.  “Look at it, in the last three months there are only four time-slots reserved by anyone besides myself, and now the twins.”

“Sure, we only use it to qualify the new recruits on their exosuits,” Kal said.

“How about without exosuits?” Catie asked.

“Not really necessary,” Kal said.  “They always wear one when on duty.”

“But what happens if they’re needed in an emergency, or if their air runs out on the exosuit?” Catie asked.

“That’s not likely to happen.  Here on the station, their suits replenish the air from the atmosphere,” Kal said.  “And we only have the hub to worry about.”

“What if we stop the rotation or the station loses spin?” Catie asked.

“I guess that could happen, but they have magnetic boots to hold them to the floor,” Kal replied.  Liz was watching the exchange with a smile.  She knew something was coming; Catie had to have a trick up her sleeve.

“What would your team do if they ran into a delinquent like one of the twins?” Catie asked.  “They’d never be able to catch them.”

“We’d just send two,” Kal said.

“I bet two of your guys couldn’t catch one of the twins,” Catie said.

Kal got a big smile on his face, “How much?” he asked.

“Five hundred,” Catie said.

“You want in on this, Liz?” Kal asked.

“I don’t think so,” Liz replied.

“I’d take a piece of the action,” Natalia said.

“Sure, five hundred okay with you?” Kal asked.

“Sure.”

Kal called in two of the security guys who were getting ready to go off duty.  He had them report to him at the obstacle course.  He had picked two of the slimmer guys on the team, figuring they would be more agile and handle the twins better.

“Can we put a time limit on it?” Catie asked when the two men from the security team arrived.

“Sure, say thirty minutes,” Kal said.

“Fine,” Catie said.  “Guys, take off your exosuits.”

“Hey, I don’t recall anyone saying my guys couldn’t wear exosuits,” Kal said.  He rubbed his hands together and smiled at Catie.

“You rat,” Catie said, sounding angry.  “Fine, they’ll beat them anyway!”

“You want to up your bet?” Kal asked.

“Sure, how about five thousand instead!” Catie almost shouted.

“You’re on,” Kal said.  “Nattie, how about you?”

“I can go a thousand,” Natalia said.

“You’re covered,” Kal said.  He turned to his two men, “Now you two are to catch one of these little girls,” Kal pointed to the twins.  “They’ll be in the obstacle course, but you’ll have your suits, they’re just going to be wearing their shipsuits.”

“No problem,” the older man said.

“Who wants to go?” Catie asked.

Both twins raised their hands and declared, “I do.”

“Roshambo,” Catie said.  The twins quickly did the three pumps with their fists; Aalia came up with scissors while Prisha chose rock.

“Prisha is it,” Catie said.  She slapped Prisha on the butt and called out, “Give it to them.”

Liz sidled up next to Catie, “How many times did you test this?”

“Three times yesterday,” Catie said, “Natalia and I chasing one of them.”

“Did you catch them?”

“Not even close,” Catie said, “and we’ve been working on our moves all week.”

After thirty minutes, two dog-tired security guys came out of the obstacle course, followed by Prisha, who was telling them all the mistakes they had made.  The two men had been totally embarrassed, and from their faces, you could tell they weren’t up to a lecture about it.

“Okay, you made your point,” Kal said, “but how many people are there like those two?”

“Who knows, but your guys are so bad they couldn’t catch anyone with an iota of skill,” Catie said.

“Hey!” the two men shouted together.

“I’m serious,” Catie said.  “I could outmaneuver you.”

“Yes, but you’re not a typical person either,” Kal said.

“I bet Natalia could outmaneuver them,” Catie said.  “The two of them couldn’t catch her and bring her out of the course.”

Kal started laughing, “I don’t think so.  Look at her; she’d hurt herself trying one of those moves that girl did.”

“Hey, I don’t appreciate your snarky remark,” Natalia said, giving Kal a mean glare.

“Sorry, but really,” Kal said.

“Put up or shut up,” Natalia said angrily.  She moved up next to Kal and glared down at him.

“Okay, double or nothing,” Kal said.  “I’d like to get my money back.”

“You’re on,” Natalia said, glaring at him.

“You want to give me my money back too?” Kal asked Catie.

“You got it,” Catie said.  “You’re back on boys!”

The two guys groaned as they moved back toward the airlock to the obstacle course.  “Do we get a cut?” one of them asked.

“You get paid, and this is part of your training,” Kal said.  “Now don’t waste time, just grab her and get it over!”

Kal moved back to the observation room, and Liz looked at Catie with a question on her face.

“They have to bring her out,” Catie said.

“Oh,” Liz said, the slight twist in the rules dawning on her.

Natalia danced around the obstacle course for about ten minutes before the two men finally figured out how to coordinate their attacks.  They finally pushed her toward a corner.  Natalia set up like she was going to push off to the right, away from the first guy; the second guy quickly moved that way to cut her off.  As soon as he was committed, Natalia pushed off toward the first guy as she pulled the faux belt off of her shipsuit and opened the loops she had added to it.  She and Catie had practiced this move a hundred times.

The first guy was shocked when he realized she was coming right at him; he used his thrusters to avoid a collision.  Natalia threw the big loop on her belt around his head.  That allowed her to pull him to her; she quickly took a second loop and applied it to his left foot and then cinched the two loops as close together as the guy's body and exosuit would allow.  Then she pushed off of him and away from the second guy.  She and Catie had quickly learned that you couldn’t get all three loops in place before you were set upon by the second target.

Natalia clinched her toes, activating the magnetic coils in her boots.  When she landed on the wall, she bent her knees to absorb her momentum, and with the magnetic coils, she stuck.  She could hear Kal screaming over her comm.

“What was that?” he yelled.

“I don’t remember anything about Nattie having to let them catch her,” Catie said in that innocent little-girl voice of hers.

Natalia quickly scanned the room and zeroed in on the second guy.  He was clearly torn between jetting over to his partner or going after her.  Apparently, he let his anger make the decision for him, and he headed toward her.  Natalia adjusted her stance, clinched her toes to disengage the magnetic coils, and waited.  As he got close, she pushed off hard, bounced off a second wall, and slammed into the guy from the side, sending him across the room.  She used the momentum from the collision to reach another wall and pushed off of it, sending her back to the first guy.  There she put the third loop around his other foot and cinched it up tight.  She grabbed another loop from her pocket and tied his hands together, then pushed away before his partner could react.

“Okay, I know when I’m beat,” Kal yelled.  “Call it off, there’s no reason to let Nattie beat up my other guy.  I should have learned my lesson on Manuae last year.”

The second guy breathed a sigh of relief and jetted over to his partner and released him.  Natalia simply headed for the airlock.  As she came through, she gave Catie a high five.

“How long did you guys practice that?” Kal asked.

“Six hours over two days,” Catie said.

“And your point?” Kal asked.

“You guys need more training in microgravity,” Catie said.  “I just sent you the training routines Nattie and I worked up with the twins.  You should have your guys do some serious training.  Nattie and I have only been working on our moves for a week.  Think what it would have looked like if we’d had a few months.”

“Okay, you’ve proved your point.  I’ll schedule some training right away,” Kal said.  “Will you two give me a few private lessons, so I don’t look like a complete rube?”

“Sure, I think that will be fun,” Catie said.

“Fun for who?” Kal asked, his voice full of worry.

“At least for us,” Natalia said.

“Where do you want me to send your money?” Kal asked.  “Or do you want cash?”

“Give mine to Jennie Marsters on Rarotonga,” Catie said.  “She keeps track of everyone and helps out anyone who’s struggling.”

“Oh yeah, I remember her,” Natalia said.  “You can give her my money, too.”

“You two are the most generous con women I know,” Kal said.

Liz was standing in the corner with her feet hooked under the bar on the bulkhead to keep her in place.  She was laughing so hard that she was having trouble staying in place.  “I’d like to get in on those lessons, too,” she said.

“Sure, the more, the merrier,” Catie said.  “Besides, I owe you.”  Catie was referring to all the throws she’d endured from Liz while she was being trained in martial arts.  She reflexively rubbed her butt.

“Just remember, we still have training sessions,” Liz threatened.

“I’ll remember.”

◆ ◆ ◆

On Tuesday, it was time for the twins to go home.  Natalia had been quick to volunteer to take them.  She was taking a vacation, and taking the twins home gave her an extra two days planetside to prep.  She and her boyfriend Paul were going to spend a week on the Mea Huli, and she was anxious to get some time aboard the yacht to learn its systems before he showed up.

“Bye, you two,” Catie said.  “It’s been fun; I’ll talk to your mom about having you come back again next month.”

“Thanks,” the twins said.  “We like it up here.  We wish Mummy would move here.”

“Maybe she will once we get more people up here,” Catie said.  She hoped she didn’t just mess up Dr. Sharmila’s life; the twins could be persistent when they wanted something.

“Yeah!”

“Now, behave yourself and pay attention to Natalia,” Catie admonished them.

“Or else!” Natalia growled, which just elicited giggles from the twins.

“Hello, Catie,” Jason said as he walked up next to her.

“Hi, Jason,” Catie replied.  “Are you flying the Lynx down?”

“Yes, I’m still qualifying on the water landings, so this is my only way to fly down,” Jason replied.

“Oh, how are they?” Catie asked.  “I haven’t made one in an Oryx yet.”

“How did you let that happen?” Jason asked.

“I’ve been too busy,” Catie said.  “I’ll do my quals on my next trip down.”

“I hear you’ve had practice,” Jason said.

Catie laughed, “It was by necessity.  That’s what gave us the idea.”

“Anyway, they’re pretty easy, a runway that’s as wide as the ocean is hard to miss.  Just need to get the nose angle right, so you don’t bounce,” Jason said.  “Are you seeing those two off?”

“Yes, they’ve been here a little over a week, I’m ready for a break.”

“Now you know how a mother feels,” Jason said.

“I guess I do,” Catie said.  “Anyway, how’s Annie?”

“She’s doing great.  She really likes the job you gave her.”

“She must be doing it well,” Catie said.  “I haven’t heard any complaints from the pilots.”

“You know Annie, she can sweet-talk anyone into anything,” Jason said.

“You should know,” Catie said with a laugh.

“Ah, my plane has arrived,” Jason said.  “I should go and get things ready; Annie demands a pretty fast turnaround on these flights.”

“Good for her,” Catie called out as Jason started to the gate.  He tussled the hair on each of the twins and gave Natalia a fist bump as he went by.

The Lynx unloaded quicker than usual since all but three of the passengers were experienced in microgravity.  By the time Jason had made it to the gate, most of the passengers were making their way from the docking ring into the hub.  Catie waved to the twins one more time before she joined the queue heading to the hub.  She thought about jumping over to the next gate to avoid the wait, but the line was moving fast, so she just relaxed.

“Hello, are you Catie McCormack?” asked a woman’s voice from behind her.

Catie turned around to see who it was; the woman was dressed in a custom ship suit with a pine tree logo on it.  It was very sharp, and Catie noticed that the woman looked pretty sharp herself.

“Yes, I am,” Catie said.  She noticed that Morgan had appeared out of nowhere and was now standing next to the woman.

“I’m Cassandra Crespo,” the woman said, extending her hand.

Catie shook hands with her, and now that she was a bit closer, she could see that the logo on the shipsuit was for the Four Seasons hotel.  They had just opened a hotel in Delphi City the previous month.

“Pleased to meet you, Cassandra.  I see you’re from the Four Seasons; how is the hotel doing?”

“We are booked solid already,” Cassandra said.  “And call me Cassy.”

“Sure, Cassy, I’m glad to hear that you’re booked.  We hope that we’ll see more people visiting Delphi City and the Cook Islands.  Are you up for a tour, or are you visiting someone?”

“I’m up for a tour of sorts,” Cassandra said.  “I’m working on a pitch to my boss; I think we should open a hotel up here.”

“That would be great,” Catie said.  “I can show you around a bit if you want, but it’s pretty simple.  We have the three rings: the outer one is one gravity, the middle one is three-quarters gravity, and the inner one is half gravity.  Other than that, everything is the same.”

“What about microgravity?” Cassandra asked.

“We don’t have much space in microgravity,” Catie said.  “It’s hard for me to imagine anyone wanting to stay there.”

“Maybe not stay there, but getting to experience it,” Cassandra said.

“That would be easy.  We have an obstacle course in the hub’s microgravity space.  We use it for training people how to work without gravity, and to use their exosuits to maneuver. We could come up with a few rooms, but space there is a premium.”

“The obstacle course would be great if we could have access.”

“We have a reservation system for it; I can take you up there if you want.”

“I’d like that, but later.  Is there anything else unique to being on a space station?”

“Other than the gravity variations, it’s kind of like being on a cruise ship,” Catie said.  “Except we don’t have a swimming pool.  The environment is totally controlled, so air is always fresh, temperature is always kept at twenty-two degrees C and forty-five percent humidity.  Seventy-two Fahrenheit,” Catie converted it as soon as she saw Cassandra trying to do it in her head.

“Can you keep your room warmer if you want?”

“You can increase it by two degrees Fahrenheit up or down, but that’s it.  It’s actually very comfortable, no drafts, and with the humidity controlled, it doesn’t feel too warm or too cold.  Even my mom thinks it’s great, and she’s always cold.”

Chapter 13

Board Meeting – Feb 3rd

“This meeting will come to order,” Marc said as he sat down at the table.  He gave everyone a few minutes to get settled.  “First order of business, Liz, please bring everyone up to date on our pirate deterrent.”

“With Catie’s help, we’ve come up with a design modification for the Foxes, which will give them hover capability,” Liz said.

“Hover, as in helicopter or vertical takeoff?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“As in helicopter,” Liz replied.  “They’re not quite as agile as a helicopter, but they can transition smoothly between hover and jet acceleration; you just have to deal with the wings’ resistance to your vertical movement.”

“That means we can station one on a freighter and deal with any pirates who decide to show up,” Kal said.

“Exactly,” Liz said.  “I’m sure they will be surprised, although we could just put a helicopter on the ship.”

“We could,” Blake said.  “But I like the range of the Hover Fox better.  It gives us a lot more options.”

“Let’s go with the Hover Foxes.  Now, moving on,” Marc said.  “Sam, where are we with our Chinese friends?”

“They’re ready.  They would like to start with twelve reactors instead of just the one,” Samantha said.  “They think that the activities in North Korea show their commitment.”

“So they’ve prepped twelve of their power plants?” Marc asked.

“Yes, they want to start out by taking care of all of the ones around Beijing.  They started right after their scientists approved the design last month.”

“Okay, does anyone have concerns?”

“You’re going to send a strong signal to the rest of the world,” Admiral Michaels said.

“Yes, get your head out of the sand or get left behind,” Blake said.

“Yes, but it’s going to beg Russia or the U.S. to step in and make a move,” the admiral said.

“Russia is already making a move,” Marc said.  “We might as well force the issue while we’re alerted for it.”

“It will at least ensure that the entire world is watching,” the admiral said.  “I’d suggest an announcement at the UN.”

“That’s something to think about,” Samantha said.  “We could reiterate our offer to the other nations as well as provide more details on our solar panels and your diesel clover.”

“Is Margaret ready?”

“I’ll have her write a speech; that will tell you if she’s ready.”

“Okay,” Marc said.  “Anything else?”

“Yes, on a lighter note, The Four Seasons wants to open a hotel here on Delphi Station.”

“They do?”

“Yes, apparently Cassandra was impressed with her tour and was able to convince her bosses that it would be worthwhile.  It’s actually not that much of an investment, just shipping furniture up here and staff.  The rest of the infrastructure is in place.”

“I don’t have any issue,” Marc said as he looked around the table.  “Seems like nobody else does either, so give them the okay.”

“Done.”

“Fred, I hear we’ve started more manufacturing,” Marc said.

“Yes.  We’ve started manufacturing solar cells last week and are ramping up as fast as we can.  We have also started manufacturing the comm chips using the integrated circuit manufacturing plant that Vancouver Tech put in.  Next week, we’ll start manufacturing the memory circuits and processing units Catie has on order to expand ADI’s capacity up here.”

“That is excellent news,” Marc said.  “That should free up printer time for our other projects.  How are the facilities down in the city coming along?”

“We’re set up to handle about fifty percent of the solar cells we manufacture.  Catie’s process improvements got ahead of us to the benefit of the Chinese, but we’ll ramp things up quickly.  We’ll soon be throttled by labor in Delphi City,” Fred said.

“What should we do about that?” Marc asked.

“They’re manufacturing jobs,” Samantha said.  “People typically don’t move for that kind of work, especially halfway around the world.  As we discussed before, we can locate assembly plants in other countries, or we can try to stimulate immigration, I think that would mean more refugees.”

“We could automate more,” Fred said.

“I’d rather not go there,” Marc said.  “We have the Chinese as a relief valve for our excess capacity; let’s see what we can do to attract more workers.  If it doesn’t work out to our satisfaction, we’ll start up a satellite plant in one of our target countries.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Fred said.

“Kal, anything we need to cover on security?”

“We’re still practicing with Zulu team,” Kal said.  “I’m waiting to see how the Hover Fox impacts our pirate situation.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“How could you let this happen?” the president demanded of Secretary Palmero.

“We have no control over Delphi,” Secretary Palmero replied.  “You’ve refused to allow me to make any overtures to them.  That left the door open for China.”

“Don’t you dare try to make this my fault!” the president yelled.

“I’m not saying anyone is at fault,” Secretary Palmero said.

“Twelve reactors in the next six months and three hundred over the next two years!” the president said.

“They did offer to provide them to any other nation that wants them,” Secretary Palmero said.  “It seems that the limiting factor is converting an existing power plant or building a new one.”

“And what is this diesel algae?” the president asked.

“They’re giving that away,” Director Lassiter said.  “It is a plant that produces diesel fuel.  It is more efficient than growing corn to make ethanol, and the fuel is better suited to the economies of developing nations.”

“They have everyone praising their efforts to reverse climate change,” General Wilson said.

“There is no such thing as climate change!”

“Sir, it doesn’t matter what we think,” Walter Meadows, the president’s chief of staff said.  “Over seventy-five percent of the American population believes that it is a problem.  And every major country besides Russia and the U.S. is demanding action.”

“Let them wreck their economies,” the president said.

“With these changes from Delphi, we’re going to see dramatic changes that will reduce CO2 emissions.  Any country that gets on board early is likely to see benefits to its economy.  If we wait too long, we’re going to be at a disadvantage,” Secretary of Commerce Mayhew said.

“How is that?” the president asked.

“The cost of energy is going to dramatically decline in any country that installs fusion reactors and actively converts and expands their solar power systems to the MacKenzie Discoveries design,” the secretary said.  “That will dramatically improve the quality of life for their citizens as well as give their industries a competitive edge over countries that are still using fossil fuels.”

“Why?  The cost of fossil fuels should plummet if you’re right about all that,” the president said.

“That is true, but bottom line, you still have to transport it to your power plants.  The difference in transportation costs is enough to give the fusion reactors a big edge, even if oil were free,” Secretary Mayhew said.

“And we will get increasing pressure from our population to convert,” Meadows said.  “The issues around air quality and the cost will be too much for them to ignore.”

“I want more options!” the president said.  “Now, go find some!”

Chapter 14

More Pirates

Catie was nervous as she sat in the control tower at the airport and watched Liz prepare to test their new Hover Fox.  “You’re clear for takeoff,” she announced over the comm.

“Rotating engines now,” Liz said.  “Scoop open, fan at ten percent.”

“Are the gyroscopes spun up?” Catie asked.

“Gyroscopes at one hundred percent,” Liz replied.

“Then you should get off the ground,” Catie teased.

“Fan at forty percent, engines at ten percent,” Liz announced.

“Your landing gear is uncompressing,” Catie said as she saw the Fox lift up a few inches and reduce the load on its landing gear.

“Fan at sixty percent, engines at fifteen.”

“You’re off the deck!” Catie yelled.

“Fan at eighty percent,” Liz said.  “I’m getting forward momentum!”

Catie watched the Fox drift down the runway.  It took her a moment to figure out why.  “Your flaps,” she called out.  “The wings are pushing air as you rise.”

“Adjusting flaps,” Liz called out.  “Stabilizing position.”

“Let’s see if you can change your direction,” Catie said.

“Rotating to the right.  Now to the left,” Liz said.  “That was a bit sluggish.”

“ADI, can you analyze that?” Catie asked.

“Yes, Cer Catie,” ADI said.  “I have made an adjustment to the controls to compensate.”

“Trying again,” Liz said.  “Right, now left.  Much better.  Thank you, ADI.”

“Of course,” ADI replied.

“Try some forward thrust,” Catie said.

“Forward thrust,” Liz said.

Catie watched as the Fox accelerated down the runway.  “I’ve got you at five knots,” she announced.

“Okay, giving it some more thrust,” Liz said.

“Fifteen knots! . . . Twenty knots! . . . Thirty knots!”  Catie read off the velocity indicator.

“Slowing down,” Liz said.

“Not by much, you’re not,” Catie said.

“Using the flaps to slow me down,” Liz announced.  “That works okay, not as good as a real helicopter, but not bad.”

“Alright, set her down, and we’ll review the data,” Catie said.

“I was going to do a transition to full flight mode,” Liz said.

“After we review the data,” Catie said.  “We need to make sure that the flap controls are properly integrated with the rest of the flight systems; we didn’t use them in our simulation.”

“You’re right,” Liz said.  “Setting her down now.”

Liz maneuvered to the center of the runway and set the Fox down.  Then she taxied off the runway and into the hangar they were using for their mods.  Catie met her in the hangar.

“Great job!” Catie yelled.  “How did it feel?”

“She’s going to do just fine,” Liz exclaimed.

“Okay, ADI’s integrating the flaps into the controls.  We’ll be ready to run simulations in an hour,” Catie said.  “I think we should run them on both versions, make any adjustments tonight, and then do another test flight tomorrow.  We can have the crew check her out for any damage or shifts in the systems tonight.”

“Good plan,” Liz said.  “Let’s go have some lunch, then we can run the simulations.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The afternoon of the following day, after successfully testing the Hover Fox, Liz was ready to test the Hover Fox with the gravity drives.

“Ready for launch,” Liz announced over the comm.

“You’re clear for takeoff,” Catie replied.

“Here I go,” Liz said as the Hover Fox launched itself into the air.  It made a vertical ascent to one hundred feet in just two seconds.  “Whoa, that was fast,” Liz said.

“What happened?” Catie asked.

“The grav drives provide more lift than we accounted for,” Liz said.

“Cer Liz, the lift was accounted for,” ADI said.

“I mean than I accounted for,” Liz said.  “I was using the same lift settings I used for the other Hover Fox.”

Liz went through a set of maneuvers with the Hover Fox.  “Man, this thing is agile,” she said, “better than the Cobra I used to fly.”

“Do a full flight transition, then come home,” Catie said.  “Daddy and Uncle Blake are waiting for an update.”

“I’ll be there in twenty,” Liz said as her Fox roared off toward the north.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Okay, so what do we know?” Marc asked.

“Both models work as designed,” Liz said.  “The second one is just more agile, a much better combat plane.”

“As I suspected, there are other advantages to the grav drives,” Catie said.  “We do need to upsize the fusion reactor so we have enough power for both weapons and the drive, unless you’re willing to give up the plasma cannons when the drive is active.”

“That’s unacceptable,” Liz said.

“I agree,” Blake said.  “Make them right or don’t make them at all.  We don’t want a pilot to be confused about when his weapons work.”

“Okay, let me think,” Marc said.  “To make them, we have to use printer time, plus we use more of the rare elements that make up the drive.  On top of that, we risk exposure of the Sakira,” Marc said.

“The first model is perfectly adequate to deal with the pirates,” Liz said.

“Okay, then let’s start making them,” Marc said.  “Catie, plan on at least four of them with the grav drives; we’ll hold them in reserve, but with limited exposure, so only you, Blake, Liz, and Fred are to know about them.”

“Got it.  I think I can print the other three sets over the next two months,” Catie said.  “What do we do with the Foxes we modified?”

“Scrap them,” Blake said.  “We don’t want to risk a pilot on a Fox with a potentially compromised airframe.  You can pull out the unaffected parts and reuse them.”

“I agree,” Marc said.  “How long to build one with the new design?”

“Another week,” Catie said.

“How are you doing it so fast?” Blake asked.

“Started it two weeks ago,” Catie said.

“Girl, you do like to play poker,” Blake said.

“Sure, what was there to lose,” Catie said.  “I was confident we were close enough we could make it work.”

“Okay, so we just need to train a few pilots, and then we’ll have an interesting shipment to China ready to go,” Marc said.

“Can we hold the one unit back for training until we get the ones from manufacturing?” Catie asked.

“I think that’s okay,” Blake said.  “Minimal stress, just get them used to takeoff and landings.”

“How many do we build?” Catie asked.

“Make ten,” Blake said.  “That should cover us.”

“Can I change the design of all the Foxes to accommodate the grav drives?” Catie asked.  “We don’t have to install them.  And the change doesn’t impact the planes in any other way, no extra mass.”

“I agree,” Blake said.

“Then do it,” Marc agreed.  “I like having options.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Do you think we’ll see a pirate attack on this one?” Kal asked as they watched the Chinese freighter head away from Delphi City.

“I hope not,” Marc said, “but I expect it.”

“Won’t they be surprised when those Foxes pop off the deck,” Catie said.

“Yes, they’ll be surprised,” Marc said.  “I just hope we can get a few prisoners out of it.”

“That last pirate still claiming to just be a stowaway?” Blake asked.

“That’s the last thing the Chinese told us,” Kal said.  “He’s sticking to that story, of course; with the penalty for piracy in China being execution, what choice does he have?”

“They still won’t give him to us?” Blake asked.

“Nope, Sam’s tried several times,” Marc said.  “They just refuse.”

“When do the Foxes join up with the freighter?” Catie asked.

“Three days,” Kal said.  “We don’t want anyone to know they’re aboard.  We rotate the pilots every four days after that.”

“Couldn’t convince any of the pilots to do the whole eighteen days?” Blake asked.

“No, you know what babies they are,” Kal replied.  “Just goes to show you how soft you get when your job is just sitting in a cockpit playing with a joystick.”

“I wouldn’t call our pilots soft,” Blake said.  Then after the challenging look Kal gave him, he added, “Of course, most of them can’t measure up to your guys.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie was running to the boardroom.  ADI had just alerted the board that there was another pirate attack underway.

“Why didn’t the captain call us before now?” Catie asked as she reached the boardroom where Blake and Marc were already reviewing the situation.

“The pirates had all comm channels scrambled.  It wasn’t until the pilots reached their Foxes and were able to use the quantum link that we knew anything,” Blake explained.

On the display, they could see one Fox hovering next to the freighter below the line of sight.  The second Fox must have been next to it, providing the camera view.

“Did they fire at her yet?” Catie asked.

“No, they’re just approaching at high speed,” Blake said.  “Everyone is waiting to see if they’re hostile or not.”

“They look pretty hostile to me,” Liz said as she walked up next to Catie.  The camera mounted on the freighter’s comm tower was showing the second vessel kicking up a huge wake as it approached the freighter.

“Here it comes,” Kal said just before the pirate vessel fired a cannon shot across the freighter’s bow.  The two Foxes immediately popped up from behind the freighter and flew toward the pirate ship.  The first one immediately used its plasma cannon to take out the pirates’ cannon.

“We’re telling them to surrender,” Lieutenant Pike said, “but they are still jamming communications.”

“Fire across their bow again,” Kal ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Pike replied.  He fired one plasma cannon burst across the bow of the pirate ship.  “Scrambler is off!”

“Sink it, use a plasma cannon to put a hole at the waterline!” Catie yelled.  “Hurry!”

Marc relayed Catie’s order then turned to his daughter, “Please explain why I just ordered them to sink that ship?” he asked.

“They blew the last one up,” Catie said.  “This way, the crew can abandon ship--you wanted prisoners.”

“The pirates are abandoning ship,” Lieutenant Pike announced.

“What makes you think they’re going to blow this one up, too?” Marc asked.

“Communications,” Catie said just as a huge explosion went off.  Turning back to the display, everyone could see the ship was gone.

“Any survivors?” Blake asked.

“It looks like we have four or five,” Lieutenant Pike announced.  “We’ll start picking them up.”

“How did you know?” Blake asked.

“Communications,” Catie said again.

“You think it was a remote detonation?” Kal asked.

“Yes.  As soon as they reported their failure, it seemed probable that whoever blew the last one up would blow this one up too,” Catie said.

“Well, you certainly called it,” Kal said.  “How do we bring the prisoners here?  We don’t want the Chinese to get them.”

“We send a Fox with a passenger carrier strapped to it,” Liz said.

“A passenger carrier?” Kal asked.

“Hey, I plan ahead,” Liz said.  “It’s basically a metal box that will strap to the bottom of the Fox.  It’ll be good enough for the few hours it will take to get back here.  We’ll need to send a medic out to make sure we take care of any injuries first.”

“Do it,” Marc said.  “I want those prisoners here ASAP.”

“On it,” Kal said, and he immediately started issuing orders through his comm.

◆ ◆ ◆

The prisoners readily admitted that they were under orders from Russia.  Marc had Ambassador Hannaford present the evidence to the UN and make a formal protest.  The Russians with U.S. support denounced the evidence as circumstantial and contrived.

“You will not succeed in besmirching my country’s good name,” Ambassador Lobanov told Ambassador Hannaford when he caught her in the elevator after the assembly meeting.

“It is not your country’s good name that I am besmirching, but the current leadership,” Ambassador Hannaford replied.  “We both know that your government was behind the attack on those freighters.”

“Lies!” Ambassador Lobanov said.  “You would do well to remember that Russia is a powerful country.”

“I know you are powerful,” Ambassador Hannaford said.  “But know this, Delphi will not be intimidated.”

“Why would we need to intimidate you,” Ambassador Lobanov said.  “With the wave of our hand, we could wipe Delphi City from the map.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, it is a promise.  We will not let you destroy the economy of Russia.  You need to decide how important it is to sell your reactors.  What good will it do you if you all have to swim.”

Marc had prepared Margaret for the possibility of such a blatant threat.  She reached into her purse, and Ambassador Lobanov’s security detail immediately reached out to restrain her.

“Don’t worry,” Margaret said.  “I just have a present for the ambassador.”  Margaret pulled out a small ball and handed it to the ambassador.  “We keep these around Delphi Station.  We use them in some of our manufacturing.  Some of them are enormous, up to ten meters in diameter.  Tell your masters that we’ll be delivering its larger brother to Iwaki Island tomorrow at twelve-oh-seven GMT.  I’m sure your scientists will be anxious to watch the delivery.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“What is going on?” the president asked as he entered the situation room at the White House.

“Mr. President, Russia’s military has just gone to high alert,” General Wilson said.

“Why?” the president asked.

“We’re not sure,” General Wilson said.  “But a meteorite just hit Iwaki Island; it is a small island in the Kuril Islands just south of the Kamchatka peninsula.”

“Why would that put them on alert?”

“After that show at the UN yesterday, the fact that it is a Russian island, and that it was just hit by a meteorite that came in at a seventy-degree angle and hit that island dead center makes one pause.”

“Wasn’t Kamchatka hit by a meteorite just a couple of years ago?” the president asked.

“Yes, it was,” General Wilson said as he referred to his notes.  He was shocked that the president would remember the event.  It had resulted in an explosion equivalent to one-hundred-seventy kilotons, ten times the power of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.  “The estimates are that this was a rather small explosion compared to that, just over seventeen tons.”

“So why all the excitement?”

“The Russian ambassador was overheard making threats to the Delphi ambassador,” Director Lassiter said.  “We did not get details of the conversation, but the Delphi ambassador didn’t seem intimidated, and she gave the Russian something.”

“What?” the president asked.

“It looked like a metal ball,” Director Lassiter said.

“If they have the ability to drop iron meteorites with precision, then we definitely have a problem,” General Wilson said.  “The data I’ve been given shows that a four-meter- diameter iron meteorite dropped at the same angle as we just saw, would match the Kamchatka meteorite in power.”

“That means that they essentially have nuclear weapons,” the president said with awe.  “That is terrible news.”

“Yes it is, and an iron meteorite traveling at that speed would be impossible to intercept,” General Wilson said.

The president flopped back into his chair.  “We are screwed.  I knew we should have dealt with them sooner!”

“Sir, we need to find a way to neutralize them, or at least get them on our side,” Secretary Palmero said.

A colonel came rushing into the room.  “Sir, we have further news from NASA.”

“What is it?” General Wilson demanded.

“The Russians have just lost five of their spy satellites,” the colonel said.  “NASA says they just disappeared.”

“I think we know who’s behind that,” Secretary Palmero said.  “It appears that they’ve decided to take the gloves off.”

Chapter 15

Whose Asteroid?

“Daddy,” Catie said as she knocked on the door jamb to Marc’s office.

“What’s up, Sweetie?” Marc answered.

“I’ve been thinking about the asteroid,” Catie said.  She walked in and sat down in the chair in front of his desk, curling her legs underneath herself.

“And?”

“I think there is something wrong with it,” Catie said.

“In what way?”

“What’s the probability of an asteroid of that size being on a vector between Paraxea and Earth, and at that velocity?”

“I don’t know, I would assume it is very tiny,” Marc said.

“Too many zeros to count,” Catie said.  “But what is the probability that someone from Paraxea launched an asteroid of that size toward Earth for some unknown reason?”

Marc jerked forward in his chair.  “I would assume the same number of zeros,” he said.

“No, and when you add in Commander Centag’s murder of Sakira’s captain, it’s only about twenty million to one,” Catie said.

“I assume you’ve gone over this with ADI?”

“Yes, Captain,” ADI said.  “I apologize for not recognizing the disparity in the probabilities.  But when Cer Catie asked me to calculate them, it seemed too much of a coincidence.”

“I should have listened to Sam,” Marc said.

“Why, wasn’t she just being superstitious?” Catie asked.

“I don’t think so; I suspect she intuited the probabilities but couldn’t tell what it was that bothered her,” Marc said.  “So, what do you think we should do?”

“We should go and have a look at it,” Catie said.

“Blake, Sam, Admiral Michaels, my office please,” Marc said into his comm.

“What’s up?” Blake said as they entered the office.  Marc pointed to a chair and held up one finger signaling he wanted to wait for the other two.

Blake’s office was right across the hall, so he was the first to arrive.  Samantha came in right behind him and pulled up another chair at the meeting table.  Marc was just moving over to the table when the admiral came in.  They both sat down as Catie moved her chair to the table.

“Catie has come up with something I think you should all hear,” Marc said.  “Catie, please repeat your theory.”

After Catie finished going over it again, Samantha pointed at Blake, “I knew you jinxed us,” she said.

“Oh, come on,” Blake said, “don’t tell me you’re superstitious?”

“No, but I just knew it was going to be a problem,” Samantha said.  “And the timing couldn’t be worse; we just threw the gauntlet down with the Russians.”

“We had to do that,” Marc said.  “They would have started sinking our freighters if we hadn’t.”

“They might call your bluff,” Admiral Michaels said.

“Who said I was bluffing,” Marc said.

“You wouldn’t seriously destroy a Russian city,” Samantha said.

“No, but I would drop a few rocks close to one, and make it clear to the population where they came from,” Marc said.

“Let’s deal with one crisis at a time,” Blake said.  “We should send a mission to see what’s up with the asteroid.  It should be obvious if it’s being controlled by Paraxea.”

“Paraxea?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Sorry, we’ll provide more information later.  But some of our technology has come from an abandoned alien starship we discovered.  The ship is from a planet called Paraxea.  We’re worried that the asteroid might have something to do with them because it’s coming from the direction of their planet,” Marc explained.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Admiral Michaels said.

“Yes, but let’s focus on the current issue, and we can get back to the aliens afterward.”

“Okay, what do you need?”

“What use would a huge asteroid like that be?” Marc asked.

Admiral Michaels took a couple of minutes before he answered.  “First, it is obviously a big weapon.  Second, it might be hiding something.  It is big, which means it could shield something.  Third, maybe resources.  It could be made up of the kind of material they would want to use once they got here.”

“I agree,” Samantha said.  “We have to find a way to get a look without being detected by someone on or behind that asteroid.”

Marc looked at Catie, whose eyes had grown big.  “Okay, what did you think up?” he asked her.

“We could use our own asteroid,” Catie said.  “We could mount gravity drives on it and an observation system, then fly it by the other asteroid.  We wouldn’t have to get that close.”

“Wouldn’t that tip them off?  The same probabilities would apply,” Marc asked.

“Yes, but we would use a small asteroid and send it from a vector off from the side, like it was in a huge solar orbit.  We could shut everything down and run the observation recorders off capacitors when we’re in range of the big asteroid.”

“How big an asteroid?” Blake asked.

“Six meters,” Catie said.  “It has to be big enough to handle three of the gravity drives.”

“If we use the small ones, it could be smaller than that,” Blake countered.

“But we need to be able to accelerate it hard.  Those drives just barely have any power,” Catie said.  “If we use the bigger ones that we used when we got our asteroids, we can push the asteroid out from our asteroid belt, on a perpendicular vector, and then bring it back past Thalia at an oblique angle.  That would hide its origins and give us the best look at what’s going on there.”

“Would we be able to recover it?” Marc asked.

“Sure, it’ll be able to accelerate at ten-Gs, so we can cover the distance fast,” Catie said.  “And since we’ll have the gravity drives, I think we should pick up another asteroid from the belt, preferably two.”

“Why?” Samantha asked.

“We’ll eventually need them, and if we’re going all the way out to the belt, we might as well get them now,” Catie said.

“I think she just wants to do another asteroid mission,” Blake said.  “She’s turned into a glory hound.”

“That too,” Catie admitted.  “But I really do think we should bring more resources closer to Earth.”

“Oh, I agree with you,” Blake said.  “I was just trying to yank your chain.”

“Who goes?” Marc asked.

“Same team as last time,” Blake said.  “Catie, Liz, and Natalia.  No reason to train another team.”

Catie looked at Samantha, who shook her head no.

“What’s the hurry?” Admiral Michaels asked.  “It’s a couple of years away.”

“No it isn’t,” Catie said.

“How so?” Admiral Michaels asked.  “NASA says it’s at fifty-five AUs and doing about ten AUs per year.”

“But when it gets inside of fifty AUs, it will be able to use gravity drives if it has them.  So, it’ll be able to accelerate,” Catie said.  “I don’t know why it’s not traveling faster than it is, but it will enter our gravity well in six months, and then it will be able to do a few tenths of a G acceleration.”

“But if it has gravity drives, why isn’t it going faster?” Blake asked.  “It should have built up more speed when it left their system.”

“Maybe they had to leave Paraxea quietly and were outside its gravity well before they could build up a lot of speed,” Samantha said.

“Maybe, we won’t know until we look,” Marc said.  “So, who else, Catie?”

“We could take Morgan to help,” Catie said.  “If we’re going for two asteroids, we can get one ready while we’re waiting for our spy asteroid to come back.”

“Take enough that you can bring two asteroids back and still send the spy asteroid for a flyby and have it come here without it coming back to you,” Marc said.  “We don’t want to risk them watching it change course.”

“We need the gravity drives from the asteroids.  Those are the only big ones we have,” Catie said.  “We can push around the asteroids we’re mining with an Oryx if we need to.”

“Okay, I’ll ask the miners to send them over on the next Oryx,” Marc said.  “Anything else?”

“I’ll work with ADI to make the observation station,” Catie said.  “It shouldn’t take too long.  We might want to steal a few things from the Sakira.”

“Take what you need.  This stays within this room,” Marc admonished everyone.  “We don’t want to get people excited until we know more.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Keep thinking, let us know if we missed anything, but no brainstorming outside the group,” Marc added.  He rubbed his face with his hand and let out a big sigh, then mumbled, “It never gets easier.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“How did the admiral like your explanation about Paraxea?” Samantha asked Marc when they finally were alone.

“He says he suspected something.  But he wasn’t too happy about being kept in the dark.”

“Are you going to show him everything?”

“Not yet.  I told him I would answer any questions that I felt were relevant to Earth's defense, if that’s what we need to do, but that I still wanted to keep some of the information closely held.”

“I bet he liked that.”

“Yeah, he was overjoyed.  But I answered his questions about weapons we had available.  I told him about the Sakira and ADI, but that I was going to hold back on a few of the more advanced technologies”

“I’m sure we’re going to have an exciting time at our next meeting.”

Chapter 16

Asteroid Mission II

Catie spent two days getting ready for the mission.  She had to go to the surface to get the telescope and a sensor array from the Sakira; she and ADI decided it would be the best fit for their needs.  She also grabbed a couple of other items that would be useful.  Then they loaded the Lynx and headed out.  This time there was no fanfare, just a few hugs and goodbyes before they left Delphi Station.

“How long will it take us to get there?” Natalia asked.

“Three days,” Catie said.

“That’s faster than last time,” Natalia said.

“I’m not stopping for microgravity training this time,” Catie said.  “We’ve all had plenty of experience.  I think two days to get our spy asteroid ready to launch, then a day each on the other two asteroids before we head back.”

“No side trips?” Morgan asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Catie said.  “I want to be home when the spy asteroid passes.”

“So do I,” Liz said.  “I sure hope this is nothing more than a harmless planet-killer asteroid.”

“That doesn’t sound too harmless,” Morgan said.

“If it’s just an asteroid, we can handle it,” Liz said.  “If there’s something more to it, then it might be more than we can handle.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“This is going to be more difficult than the last ones,” Catie said as she led Morgan, Liz, and Natalia down to the asteroid ADI had selected.

“Why?”

“We need to bury everything,” Catie said.  “That means we have to dig out big holes to put the drives and reactor in.”

“And we’re burying them because?” Liz asked.

“We don’t want anything about the asteroid to be interesting to Paraxeans,” Catie said.  “We don’t want any of the exotic material in the drives or reactor to show up on scans.”

“You think they would grab it for just that little bit of material?” Liz asked.

“You never know.  If there are Paraxeans behind that asteroid, they might be running short of critical material, or they might be interested to know why the asteroid flying by them shows as having the exact combination of material to make a gravity drive.”

“But how do we bury them?” Natalia asked.  “There’s not enough gravity to keep things in place.”

“We save as much of the material that comes out of the hole as we can,” Catie said.  “I brought some stuff we can use as glue when we put it back in.”

“What is that?”

“A silicate and petroleum mix.  We just melt it down over the other stuff and then let it freeze.”

“Now I know why you brought me,” Morgan said.  Although she wasn’t as big as Natalia, Morgan made Liz and Catie look like little girls in comparison.

“Well, we did need some extra muscle,” Catie said.

It took them half a day to dig out the hole for the reactor. Catie had them set it right away since she didn’t want to take a chance that the material they’d excavated would get lost.  They had the reactor in place with four cables extending from it, three for the gravity drives, and one for the observation post.

“Okay, bury it,” Catie said.

“How much?” Natalia asked.

“Just get it covered first, then we’ll put some of our glue on it,” Catie said.  “Natalia, why don’t you and Morgan bring those bags from the hold.  Liz and I can shovel dirt.”

“How many bags?”

“I don’t know, so let’s start with four,” Catie said.

In the end, it took six bags to bury the reactor sufficiently that ADI didn’t get a signal from her test scan.

“Okay, let’s take a break for lunch, then we need to set one of the drives today.  They’re smaller, so it should go faster.”

That night, Catie and Liz made dinner, while Natalia and Morgan got their showers and rested up.  Catie thought it was only fair since they had done most of the hard work.

“Nice spread,” Morgan said.  “I was wondering if we’d be eating sandwiches while we weren’t accelerating.”

“Sam figured out all the tricks to cooking without gravity on the last trip,” Catie said.  “We all got lessons from her.”

“She was pretty good about it, but she wasn’t willing to do all the cooking,” Liz said.

“Well, she had to watch the twins,” Catie said.

“Twins?” Morgan asked.  “Don’t tell me you took those two little monsters on the last mission.”

“We did,” Catie said.  “They were a lot of fun, but a lot of work as well.  And why are you calling them monsters?”

“They ran my ass into the ground on that obstacle course,” Morgan said.

“That doesn’t make them monsters,” Liz said.

“No, but the way they enjoyed it does,” Morgan said.

“They can be a little heartless,” Natalia said.  “Last time I worked out with them, they ran me into a wall.”

“That’s what Kal wants them to do,” Catie said.

“And they do it well, and with relish,” Morgan said.  “Hence, they’re little monsters.”

Catie laughed while thinking of the last time she’d tried to catch one of the twins.  She was getting better, but you’d swear you were having to chase two of them.  After one of Kal’s men had refused to believe he was just chasing one of them, they had started making them wear different color shipsuits.  It was amazing how they could bounce between two walls and exit the passage traveling parallel to one of the walls.

The next day they set the other two gravity drives.  “How long before it gets us a picture of the target?” Liz asked as they sent the spy asteroid on its way.

“ADI, how long?” Catie asked.

“Sixteen days, four hours,” ADI answered.

“Why so long?” Liz asked.

“We have to send it out on an elliptical orbit, so it looks like it’s in a natural orbit around the sun,” Catie said.  “First, it has to travel along the asteroid belt to get to the right place to start out, and then it has to go beyond Neptune’s orbit before it can start toward Thalia.  It’s just a long way to go.  We’re really accelerating it fast to get there; then we have to slow it down to the right speed.  We’re counting on the fact that it’s so small the Paraxeans won’t notice it.”

“So, we’ll be home before we know anything,” Natalia said.

“Right.”

The four women were exhausted when they finally headed home.

“Three days before I get a bubble bath,” Natalia said.

“Oh, that sounds nice,” Morgan said.  “That shower is nice, but my muscles are screaming for a good hot soak.”

“I might soak for a week,” Natalia said.

“You’ll be a prune if you do.”

“But I’ll be a relaxed prune.”

They all laughed at that.

Three days later, when Catie docked the Lynx with Delphi Station, the four women barely said hello to anyone before they were locked in their bathrooms for the next few hours.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hey, Sweetie,” Marc said when Catie finally came out of the bathtub.

“Hi, Daddy,” Catie said.

“Hard mission?”

“Long, and lots of work, I’m still sore.”

“Well, ADI says we’re getting a good signal from the asteroid.  All systems are working as expected.”

“That’s good.  But it’s still ten days before we know anything.”

“Yes, we’ll have some idea in nine days, because the spy satellite will be over Thalia’s horizon.”

“True, just depends on what’s there.”

“So are you ready to go to dinner with Sam and Blake to celebrate the success of your mission?”

“Is my crew invited?”

“Of course.”

“Then yes.  Where are we going?”

“Deogene’s”

“Now?”

“As soon as you’re dressed.”

“Okay, I’ll let everyone know,” Catie said.

“I already have,” Marc replied.

Chapter 17

Waiting and Waiting

“What’s up with the Russians?” Catie asked as she sat down to breakfast with her father, Uncle Blake, and Samantha the next day.

“It’s mostly been quiet,” Samantha said.  “They made a few protests about the sudden disappearance of all their spy satellites.”

“What did we say?” Catie asked.

“We offered to go look for them if they would tell us where they were supposed to be,” Samantha said.

“How’s Meg doing?” Catie asked.

“She’s enjoying the job,” Samantha said.  “Wasn’t too happy with Ambassador Lobanov’s threats, but he seems to have a lot less bluster lately.”

“What about the U.S.?”

“No real movement there.  Admiral Michaels says that things are quiet, but there have been no overtures toward us.”

“What price are you going to ask for access to the fusion reactors?” Blake asked.

“Denuclearization,” Marc said.

“What about China?”

“Same thing; after the first twelve, we’ll start demanding a reciprocal level of denuclearization for each reactor, starting with their ballistic submarines,” Marc said.

“Do you expect a problem?” Catie asked.

“We’ve gotten positive signals from the ambassador,” Samantha said, “especially after that meteorite hit Iwaki Island.  I think all the major powers got that message.”

“Good,” Catie said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Gawd, another six days,” Catie said as she and Liz got ready for their run.

“It’s just six days,” Liz said.  “Just keep doing what you would if there wasn’t some big asteroid that might be hiding a Paraxean fleet heading for Earth.”

“Oh, now that helps take my mind off of it.”

“There’s nothing to do but to keep doing what we’ve been doing.  Did you hear that Blake is going to extrude another hub starting tomorrow?”

“Yeah, we talked about it.  He wants more room to make space fighters, might as well make a hub while he’s at it.  He’s only going to do the inside shell.”

“Then how’s he going to connect it to section one?”

“He’ll make the endcaps and the magnetic bearings.  Later, when they do the outer hub, they’ll extrude it down around the inner hub, then extend the endcaps to lock it in place.”

“How many laps are we running?” Liz asked.

“Two,” Catie said.  “Five-minute pace.”  With the outer ring being one thousand meters in diameter, that meant they would be running 6.28 kilometers, just under four miles, in twenty minutes.

“I hear the twins are coming up tomorrow,” Liz said.  “That should take your mind off of the waiting.”

“Or make it seem that much longer,” Catie said.  She and Liz both laughed at that thought as they picked up their pace.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, Sophia,” Catie said as she joined her at the table for lunch.

“Hi, Catie, where have you been?”

“I’ve been around, just busy.”

“You look antsy,” Sophia said.  “Kind of like my father.  Do you know why he’s so nervous lately?”

“I didn’t know he was.”

“Liar.”

“No, really,” Catie said.  “Might be the stuff with the Russians.  We’re all wondering if they’re going to behave themselves or start attacking our freighters again.”

“Why would they stop?”

“Because Daddy dropped them a note,” Catie said as she dropped a piece of ice from her glass onto the table.

“What do you mean, dropped them a note?”

“He demonstrated what a meteorite that is dropped from orbit can do when it hits the earth.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound very nice.”

“Well, sinking a freighter with people on it isn’t very nice either.”

“But they didn’t sink a freighter.”

“Not yet, but they blew up their own boat and killed the pirates that were working for them.  Clearly, they didn’t care about lives.”

“I guess not, so did they get the message?”

“There haven’t been any more attacks,” Catie said, “but it’s still early.”

Chapter 18

What Is That?

Marc had instructed ADI not to allow anyone, including himself, to view the footage from the spy asteroid until the meeting he had called for Tuesday, March 17th.

“How did this all line up for Saint Patrick’s Day?” Blake asked as they all assembled in the boardroom.

“I have no idea, I never even thought of Saint Patrick’s Day while the timeline was working itself out,” Marc said.  “Are you going to switch to Irish Whiskey in honor of the occasion?”

“I just happen to have a bottle of fifteen-year-old Redbreast,” Blake said.  “I hope one is enough.”

“So do I,” Marc said.

“Does that mean you really haven’t seen any of the data?” Blake asked.

“Hey, two days wasn’t going to make a difference, and I figured that the only way any of us was going to get any rest is if I made it clear that there would be no way to get a preview.”

“Didn’t Catie find a way around your gag order?”

“No!” Catie said.  “I tried, but it was airtight.”

“I hope you didn’t waste too much time trying,” Samantha said.

“Just a few hours.  ADI told me I didn’t have a prayer.”

“Good for her.  Now do we finally get to see what we came here for?” Samantha asked.

“I’ve asked ADI to make a presentation,” Marc said.  “ADI, please proceed.”

“Yes, Captain,” ADI said.  An image came up on the display.

“Oh my god,” Samantha said.

“What you are seeing are two Paraxean carriers and what you would call a Paraxean battleship,” ADI said.  “The carriers are five hundred meters in length, two hundred meters wide and one hundred sixty-four meters tall.  They can each carry four hundred fifty FX4s in a battle-ready configuration and a thousand or more in a transportation configuration.”

“What about that battleship?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“The battleship is designed around four plasma cannons.  Each has its own antimatter reactor.  They are capable of delivering a pulse that even through a planet’s atmosphere would yield the equivalent of one hundred megatons.”

“Antimatter reactor?” the admiral asked.

“Later,” Marc said.

“What else does it do?” the admiral asked.

“It also has a railgun that can deliver large projectiles at very high velocity; the yield would be equivalent to two hundred megatons.”

“Oh my god,” Samantha repeated.

“It has lasers and close-defense plasma cannons, but its true purpose is to destroy other ships or to bombard a planet,” ADI said.

“How do you stop one of those?” Blake asked.

“Unknown,” ADI said.  “Another battleship could potentially stop it, but there is no recorded case of one of them being destroyed.  The Husari, the civilization that designed them, only used one once during their civil war.  They used it to subdue their sister planet that was trying to break away from them.  It took the destruction of five cities before the planet surrendered.”

“We cannot let that thing get to Earth,” Marc said.

“Agreed, but how do we stop it?” Blake asked.

“We’ll have to find a way.  ADI, what else do you have?”

“The asteroid has twelve groupings of buildings on it, each appears to have its own fusion reactor,” ADI said as the display showed the surface of the asteroid.

“What would you put in those buildings?” Samantha asked.  “There are no streets, no connections between them; what purpose would they serve?”

“Supplies,” Admiral Michaels said.

“That much?” Blake asked.  “Then why all the energy?”

“Stasis pods,” Dr. Metra gasped.

“Stasis pods?  Of course, they’re planning to colonize our system,” Marc said.

“Why?” Samantha asked.

“Cer Samantha, I deduce that there must have been a political fracturing in Paraxea.  This element has decided to leave and colonize Earth so that they can avoid the restrictions on Paraxea,” ADI said.

“It is probably the technologists and elite trying to get out from under the thumb of the mediocracy,” Dr. Metra said.  “That makes sense given Commander Centag’s allegiances.”

“But to conquer another world!” Samantha said.

“I’m sure most of them don’t know what is planned,” Dr. Metra said, “but many of their leaders are ruthless.”

“We’ll have to ask them about their motivations after we kick their asses,” Blake said.  “Right now, we need to do some planning.”

“ADI, is there anything else?” Marc asked.

“No, Captain,” ADI said.  “No other ships were detected.  The Paraxean fleet is not doing active scans or sending out any communications that I could detect.  Of course, I would not be able to detect any communication over a quantum relay.”

“So now we need to talk about options,” Marc said.  “What do we do?”

“We start pumping out Foxes like crazy,” Blake said.  “We need to be able to meet them head-on.”

“We have to stop them before they get inside our gravity well,” Catie said.  “Before then, that battleship will be slow, but once it’s inside the gravity well, I don’t see how we stop it.”

“Please explain?” Admiral Michaels asked.  He and Catie looked at Marc.

“I think Catie understands this as well or better than the rest of us; go ahead, Catie,” Marc said.

“Those ships are too massive to use space engines for propulsion; it would take too much mass, so they use huge gravity drives.  But they are only effective inside an area with gravimetric waves above a certain density.  Out in deep space, they cannot multiply the gravimetric energy enough to overcome their own inertia.  They use space engines for course corrections and such, but they have to wait until they get within fifty-five AUs to our sun, farther away if it is a really massive sun.  Getting close to a gas giant helps, too.”

“And the asteroid is approaching that distance now,” Admiral Michaels said.

“Yes, but fortunately, Neptune is on the other side of the sun from their approach, so they have to get inside the fifty or so AUs before they can use their gravity drives effectively.  Then they’ll be able to accelerate toward the sun.  At first, it will be slow, but eventually, they’ll be able to start accelerating,” Catie said.

“So how long do we have?”

“Admiral Michaels, I estimate that they will enter Sol’s gravity well in mid-July,” ADI said.

“So before then, the battleship won’t be very fast or very maneuverable?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Correct, Admiral,” ADI said.

“So how do we stop them?” Samantha asked.

“You have to build a carrier, two preferably,” Admiral Michaels said.

“Why?” Catie asked.

“You have to have a forward base for the Foxes and whatever we come up with to throw at them,” the admiral said.

“But why a carrier?” Catie asked.  “Why not use a few Oryxes for the Fox pilots or make a hub shell and use that?”

“Because my dear, war is more than just math and strategy, it’s about fear and emotion.  We cannot ask pilots to go out and risk their lives and then ask them to use an Oryx as their base.  They’ll do it, but they’ll start out feeling defeated.  They need to feel invincible; they need to see us as being able to meet that force head-on.”

“He’s right,” Blake said.  “We can’t afford to run a guerilla campaign against them; we have to hit them hard, so we need ships.”

“We need pilots and sailors,” the admiral said.  “We have to expect them to be bringing at least fifteen-hundred Foxes; we couldn’t put two-hundred into space; we don’t have the pilots or the crews to keep them going.”

“So we need to recruit two thousand pilots,” Catie said.

“More,” the admiral said.  “You have to account for casualties and pilot rotations.  You would need at least four thousand to even have a hope of fighting them.”

“Casualties?” Catie whispered.

“Yes, expect thirty percent casualties,” the admiral said.  “It might be more.  Is it possible they have something more formidable than an FX4?”

“Admiral, there are no indications that the Paraxeans have developed a different fighter,” ADI said.  “And given their slow rate of innovation, it is unlikely that they have.”

“Good, hopefully, we know what we’re up against.  So we need to do some planning,” the admiral said.

“We need to go to the UN,” Samantha said.  “We need to get help from the other world powers; they have the pilots we need.”

“Fred, can we build Foxes fast enough?” Marc asked.

“We just extruded another hub,” Fred said.  “We have the space; in fact, we can build out in raw space if we need to, but we need the electronics that we’ve been importing from Britain.”

“We need more printers,” Catie whispered.  “We’ll need help getting the material the printheads are made of; we’ve already used all that the Sakira had in stock.”

“Liz, can you get a list of the material we need?  Work with Sam and ADI to figure out how to acquire it,” Marc said.  “Blake, Admiral Michaels, we’ll need to figure out how to recruit and train pilots.”

“I’ll start working on a presentation for the UN Security Council.  I’ll have Margaret flown up here so we can work on it together.”

“Catie . . . ,” Marc stopped talking as he saw the distraught look on Catie’s face.  “Catie, we’ll need to think about how to build a carrier.  I’ll talk to you about it later.”  Marc looked at Liz, trying to decide what to do.

Liz mouthed, “I’ll take her,” to Marc.

Marc nodded his agreement to Liz, then he texted Linda, “Catie needs you!”  He then texted ADI, telling her to explain the events to Linda.

Liz took Catie by the arm and led her out of the room.  Natalia gave Liz a questioning look as she and Catie came into the hallway.  She’d never seen Catie look so quiet and blank.

“Come on Girl, we’ll get some tea,” Liz said as she gave Natalia a shushing motion with her lips.  “I hear your mom’s on her way up.”  Liz looked pointedly at Natalia, who quickly got the message.  Natalia texted Morgan to meet Catie’s mom at the docking ring and bring her to the cabin as quickly as possible.

◆ ◆ ◆

In Delphi City, as soon as Linda received Marc’s text and ADI’s background information, she exited the hospital where she was met by one of Kal’s security men in a golf cart.  The hospital was right next to the airport. By the time they reached the end of the runway, a Lynx had taxied from its hangar and was waiting for them.  Linda climbed the ramp onto the Lynx, and as soon as its door was closed, it started screaming down the runway, going vertical as soon as it was airborne.  The pilot was pouring extra hydrogen into the engines, having been told that time was critical and to spare nothing.  Thirty minutes later, the Lynx docked at the space station, and Linda was met by Morgan, who literally carried her to the elevator.  It only took five minutes to reach Catie’s cabin in the third ring.

“Hi, Mommy,” Catie said when her mother came in.

“Hello, Sweetie,” Linda said.  “I hear you’re having a bad day.”

“I think we’re all having a bad day.  Did Daddy tell you that the Paraxeans are coming?”

“Yes he did,” Linda said.  Liz and Natalia quietly made their way out of the cabin.

“There’s going to be a war.”

“I know.”

“People are going to get killed,” Catie whispered.

“Yes.”

“My friends might get killed.”

“They might.”

“What am I going to do?” Catie asked.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to cry!”

“Then cry.  It’s okay; crying is good sometimes.”

“I never thought about it that way.  Even when Uncle Blake got hurt, I never thought they could kill him!”  Two rivers of tears were flowing from Catie’s eyes.

“I know.”

“Now, he, or Jason, or Liz, or Fred might get killed.”

“They might.”

“It’s not fair.”

“War is never fair.”

Catie continued to sob with her head on Linda’s lap until she fell asleep.  Linda then reached into her purse and pulled out a hypospray she’d prepared and injected Catie with a sedative.

“She’s asleep,” she texted Marc.

Marc entered the cabin immediately, “How is she?”

“She’s upset,” Linda said.

“Let’s put her to bed,” Marc said as he scooped Catie up in his arms and carried her to her bedroom.  “How long will she be asleep?”

“At least eight hours.”

Marc used his elbow to push the button that brought the bed down, then he laid Catie down and removed her boots while Linda got a blanket out of the drawer to cover her.  Once Catie was settled in to Linda’s satisfaction, she led Marc back out to the sitting room.

“Tell me what’s happening?” Linda asked.

“We don’t know much,” Marc said.  “The Paraxeans are coming with what we believe is a colonization fleet.  They have two carriers with maybe fifteen hundred Foxes and a battleship that can wipe out any city on Earth.”

“Oh my god, now I want to cry,” Linda said.

“I think we all do.  We have to figure out how to stop them.”

“What about Catie?  What should we do with her?”

“I don’t know.  I think we have to ask her.”

“Marc!  Be a parent; we should decide what’s best for her.”

“I am being a parent!  You know Catie, she’ll listen, but she’s going to make up her own mind.”

“I don’t want her on the front lines!”

“Neither do I, but where is the front line?  I’ve been trying to teach her that she’s more valuable behind the lines.”

“Good!”

“But we’ve never been at war,” Marc said.  “This changes everything.”

“But you can keep her safe.”

“If I try to do that, she’ll find a way around it,” Marc said.  “We have to be there for her, guide her a little, but she’s going to find her own place in this.”

“No!” Linda pounded Marc on the chest.  He grabbed her and held her in a tight hug as she started to cry.  “It’s not fair; she’s only fourteen.”

“She’s never been only any age,” Marc whispered.  “She’ll be okay; we have to be strong for her.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, Daddy,” Catie said.  She had awakened to find her father sitting in the chair next to her bed.  “Where’s Mommy?”

“She’s taking a shower in Liz’s room.”

“Where are my specs?”

“Why don’t we leave them off for a bit,” Marc said.  “We’ll just have a nice breakfast and talk, the three of us.”

“Sure,” Catie said.

“I’ve got your comm and your spare pair,” Marc said.  “And ADI has been instructed that this cabin is under radio silence until after breakfast.  Now, why don’t you get your shower.”

“Okay,” Catie said with a pout, not happy about being cut off from what was going on.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, Mommy.”

“Hi, Sweetie, did you sleep okay?”

“I guess so,” Catie said as she gave her mother a hug.  “Daddy, what’s happening now?”

“Nothing has changed since yesterday,” Marc said.

“Do we know how to beat that thing yet?” Catie asked.

“Not yet, but we’ll figure something out,” Marc said.

“I want to help.”

“I’m sure you will, but we should talk about the best way for you to do so,” Marc said.

“You mean you don’t want me to climb in a Fox and race out there and try to blow it apart?”

“No, I don’t think that would be very helpful,” Marc said.

“Shouldn’t we leave the fighting to the soldiers,” Linda said, giving Catie’s leg a squeeze.

“I’m part of our navy,” Catie said.  “And even if I wasn’t, I’d join it now!”

“But do you think that’s where you can do the most good?” Marc asked.

“I’m our best pilot!”

“But is one pilot going to win this war?”

“No, but we need so many pilots,” Catie said.

“We also need ship designers, trainers, strategists,” Marc said.

“I’m not turning in my wings!”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you where you can make the biggest impact on us winning this thing,” Marc said.

“I’m not sure.”

“Just like you did with Admiral Morris, sometimes the best thing and the hardest thing is to come up with a plan and let others execute it.”

“But if things change, if I’m right there, I can adapt,” Catie said.

“That’s why the pilots are trained to take orders; so they can apply any adaptation instantly, just as if the strategist were sitting in the cockpit with them,” Marc said.  “You know your Uncle Blake is going to be standing on the carrier, giving orders, not flying a jet.”

“He is?”

“He knows that’s the best place for him,” Marc said.  “It allows him to amplify his experience by directing the activity of all of the squadrons we’ll be sending, instead of just the one he would lead.”

“You see that, don’t you?” Linda asked.

“Maybe,” Catie said.

“We have six months to get ready.  Right now, we have to figure out how to build a carrier that’s four times the size of the Sakira, how to build hundreds of Foxes, and how to beat that battleship,” Marc said.  “I’m counting on your help there.”

“I’ll help,” Catie said.  “That is if I can get my specs and comm back,” she said, standing in front of her father with her hands on her hips.

“They’re on the kitchen counter,” Marc said.  “We’ll be having a strategy meeting at ten o’clock each morning, starting today.”

“I’ll be there!”

Chapter 19

We Need a Plan

“Hi, Liz,” Catie said when she met her in front of the boardroom.

“Hi, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, sorry about yesterday.”

“Sorry about what,” Liz said.  “You had a bit of a shock like the rest of us.”

“You did pretty good,” Natalia said.  “I smashed a coffee cup when Liz told me what was going on.”

“But I froze.”

“You didn’t freeze,” Liz said, “you finished the meeting.  There was nothing you had to do, so you were processing.  Now, let’s go in there and figure out how to kick some Paraxean ass.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Everybody knows the issue, now we need to figure out a solution,” Marc said once all the board members were seated.  “First, is there anyone else we should invite?  Someone with experience or skills that none of us have?”

“I’m sure we’ll come up with some gaps once we start discussing things,” Admiral Michaels said.  “For now, we should start laying out what we need.”

“Okay, let’s review what weapons we have,” Marc said.  He gave a nod to Blake.

“We have the Foxes, and we can build more,” Blake said.  “Each can carry sixteen missiles in space, has four defensive lasers, two plasma cannons, and a railgun.  The missiles can carry a Max-X warhead, which is essentially the small fusion bomb, two megatons.”

“Why wouldn’t we be able to take out the battleship by firing a barrage of missiles at it?” Liz asked.

“We could if we had enough of them to get through its defenses,” Blake said, “but every one of those fighters has but one purpose, to defend that battleship.  And the battleship has enough lasers and small plasma cannons to take out anything that gets close, and that’s after their own missiles take out as many of ours as they can.”

“Plus, I would rather not totally destroy it, if possible,” Marc said.  “That ship has a crew of approximately fifteen hundred Paraxeans . . .”

“More if they’re using it to transport stasis pods,” Dr. Metra interjected.

“If we were to kill everyone on it, we might find ourselves faced with any number of Foxes headed toward Earth to get revenge,” Marc continued.

“So you want to capture it?!” the admiral asked.

“Not necessarily.  We need to find a way to disable it.  I would like to start there before we escalate.  Again, once we escalate, they may send Foxes toward Earth, and we want to contain the engagement out there.”

“What do we have that can disable it?” Liz asked.

“The railguns.”

“How?  They have railguns too; won’t they be able to defend against them?” Liz asked.

“ADI, what is the ammunition for the railguns made of?” Marc asked.

“Polysteel,” ADI replied.

“What is the defense against them?”

“The lasers are used; a sustained laser pulse will vaporize the carbon, dissipating the slug’s energy.”

“What would happen if the slug were made of iron?”

“The laser would heat the iron to its melting point if it could maintain a lock long enough,” ADI said.  “The slug would dissipate much of its energy when it hit the hull of a ship, but it would still cause a lot of damage.  If it hit one of the lasers or plasma cannons, it would probably destroy it.”

“What would it take to change the slugs in the Foxes from polysteel to iron?”

“The railguns would need to be redesigned,” ADI said.  “They cannot carry a sufficient charge to accelerate a slug of that mass and composition.”

“How difficult is the redesign?”

“You would simply need to change the rails,” ADI said.  “They would need to be more massive and have larger superconductors embedded in them.”

“Okay, so we have a way to hurt them,” Admiral Michaels said, “but will that be enough?”

“We won’t know until we engage them,” Marc said.  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to engage and adapt.”

“But first we need to build a carrier and enough Foxes that we even stand a chance,” Blake said.

“Building the carrier shouldn’t be hard,” Catie said.  “It’s kind of like building the space station, and we’ve been doing that for a year.”

“But, as you pointed out, the space station has nice symmetrical geometry; that carrier is symmetrical, but its cross-sectional radius is continuously changing as you go down its length,” Liz said.  “We can’t spin a set of plasma guns around and make it.”

“Oh, I’m sure I can figure out how to do it,” Catie said.  She quickly did some calculations in her head before adding, “We can do something like we’re doing with the solar arrays.  We should be able to create a shell in about six weeks.”

“If we can do that, we can open, or take the flight bay doors off and slide in preassembled sections,” Liz said.  “That way, we’ll be able to finish it off a couple of months after the shell is ready.”

“Good, you two figure out how to make the carriers; we should aim for at least two,” Marc said.

“We have to print gravity drives,” Catie said.  “We’re limited by the number of printers we have.  I think we should dedicate one printer to make more printers.”

“How long does it take to make a printer?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Four weeks.”

“We’ve only got four months to be ready.”

“But after four weeks, we’ll be back to the same production capacity; after twelve weeks, we’ll be caught up and have three times the capacity, and will still be adding a printer every four weeks,” Catie said.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” the admiral said.  “Do we have what it takes to make the printer?”

“I’ve identified the material we need to acquire,” Fred said.  “It’s available; some of it is quite rare, but we don’t need much.”

“What about Foxes?” Marc asked.

“Like I said, we can start ramping up production, but they’re slow.  It’s those wings that cause such a problem.”

“Why do you need wings in space?” Nikola asked.

“You don’t, but they’re designed to fly both in space and atmosphere,” Blake said.

“But we could just remove the wings,” Catie said.  “Add some simple extension to mount the thrusters and missiles on; then you could extrude the fuselage.”

“I’ll work with Fred on that,” Blake said.  “We’ll come to you for help if we need it.  We’ll change the railguns while we’re at it.  How big a slug do you want the railguns to shoot?”

“ADI?”

“Captain, I recommend twenty-five millimeters for maximum energy and effect,” ADI said.

“Do we know why they are using an asteroid to transport the stasis pods?” Samantha asked.

“No,” Marc answered.

“Captain, I have a hypothesis,” ADI said.  “I have not completed all of my analysis, but I am eighty percent confident that my hypothesis is correct.”

“Please tell us.”

“Based on the analysis from the scans we did as our sensors passed the asteroid, it appears that several of the structures housing the stasis pods are made up of a ship’s hull.  The rest of them are made of polysteel.  The gravity drives are also consistent with one of the larger cargo vessels used by the Paraxeans.  I hypothesize that they started out with them in a very large vessel, and something happened which damaged that vessel beyond repair, forcing them to commandeer an asteroid to carry the pods,” ADI said.

“What could have done that?” Blake asked.

“It would have to have been a significant event,” ADI said.  “The ship typically carries supplies and equipment sufficient to repair substantial damage.”

“Have you picked up any information in the Paraxean updates you receive?” Marc asked.

“Nothing in the updates have indicated that any mission such as this is underway,” ADI said.  “I have not queried their systems for any information, as you have instructed.”

“I think we should stay with that for a while,” Samantha said.  “We don’t want to risk tipping these guys off that we know they’re coming.”

“Okay,” Marc said.  “We’ll wait.”

“Margaret arrives today,” Samantha said.  “You’ll need to start working on your speech for the UN Security Council.”

“Oh joy,” Marc said.  “We’ll meet each day for a short time to keep everyone in the loop.  You can tie in virtually if you need to, but I only want you to do that if it is impossible for you to actually make the meeting in person.”  He looked directly at Catie as he added the last part.  Catie just smiled at her father.

◆ ◆ ◆

“How’s your speech going?” Admiral Michaels asked Marc as the board gathered the next morning.

“It’s going, do you want to write it?” Marc asked.

“Nope, I’ve always hated giving speeches, especially to a hostile audience.”

“Ah, they won’t be hostile,” Blake said.  “Everybody loves to hear about an alien invasion; add on top of that that we have been sitting on alien technology for a few years, and they’re going to love you.”

“Thanks, Blake.  I can always count on you to cheer me up.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Everyone’s here, so let’s do the update and get out of here,” Marc said.  “Blake, how’s the new fighter going?”

“Per the suggestions, we went back and created a fighter where everything can be extruded, so it’s fast to build,” Blake said as he brought the image of the new fighter design up on the display.  The fighter looked like a giant arrow with a bubble poking out of the shaft.

“That doesn’t look like I expected,” Marc said.  “Why the wings and that bubble on top?”

“Style,” Blake said.  “We want the pilots to like their jets, so a little extra to make them look cool is important.  Now, before you object, let me explain.  The wings are extrudable; we just put an angle on them so we can attach them to form the arrow; it doesn’t take any longer to extrude them than it would some simple round arm.  The bubble is the cockpit; it has to be separate so that it can be ejected if the jet blows up, so we just make a hole for it when we extrude the fuselage, then pop it in.”

“I like it,” Catie said.  “I was worried it would look like a flying log; this isn’t so bad.”

“It only takes a little more material,” Blake said.  “We also increased the hull thickness and the density of the superconductor mesh.  That increases its survivability by thirty percent.  It carries the same number of missiles, lasers, and plasma cannons.  The railgun handles the iron slugs, and we’ve increased the power of the thrusters to make it more maneuverable.  Catie gave us a way to make the nosecone so that we can extrude it also, and we had to have a nosecone either way.”

“Okay, so what’s our production capacity?” Marc asked.

“Our limiting factor will be the avionics and the internal displays,” Blake said.  “We’ve been getting them from French suppliers.”

“Don’t put displays in,” Catie said.  “The pilots can see everything in their HUDs, and nobody looks at them anyway.  You have to have the avionics, but you can drop all the atmospheric ones.”

“We’ve already simplified the avionics, but good idea about the display,” Blake said.  “So, the main bottleneck will be producing fusion plants for them.”

“I’ve done the analysis on that with ADI; we should be able to make them fast enough.  We’ll dedicate one printer, and make them in batches of twenty-five,” Fred said.

“Excellent job, guys.  Catie and Liz, how are you doing on the carrier?”

“We’ve figured out how to make the hull in less than six weeks.  We’re going to make two big printers and run them opposite each other to make the two halves; we’ll start one; then once it’s out of the way, the second one will start up and make the other half as a continuous piece,” Catie said.

“If it was insane for the Paraxeans to print their ships, why is it smart for us to?” Marc asked.

“Because we’re going to make a smart printer,” Catie said.  “It’s really more like a plotter, able to move the plasma guns in both x and y directions.  That way, we only trace the edge of the hull with the guns.  If we run eight pairs of guns on each printer, we can do a hull in thirty-six days.  The pairs run on opposite sides of the hull, one doing the top half and the other the bottom half.  One printer prints the front half, the other the back half.  And yes, we ran simulations with ADI.”

“We’ll build as much of the interior as we can while the hulls are extruding,” Liz said.  “Then once the hull is done, we go in, add the ribs, then slide the pieces into place.  That will give us eighty percent of the interior, then we finish the last twenty percent in place.  Our big bottlenecks are the grav drives, and the DI to run the ship.  We have the printer time allocated to them.  We’ve finished ANDI, so we have a separate DI for Sakira, so he or ADI can actually run the carriers if we can’t make a DI for them.  We’re prioritizing the main memory and computer circuits, plus the interface.  We’ll add the DI last if we’re able to finish them in time.”

“Do we have the material we need to build all this?” Marc asked.

“I talked with our miners yesterday,” Blake said.  “They told me no sweat, they’ll run double shifts.  When Catie’s new asteroids show up, they’ll double up and work on them at the same time.  We have the Oryx capacity if we stop lifting stuff from Earth.  That will slow down the build-out for the station, but I think we’re all willing to live with that.”

“We need the material to make the new printers,” Catie said.

“I’ve got the response from my inquiries; the materials are available, we just need a little help acquiring them,” Fred said.

“What kind of help?”

“Between Japan, China, the US, and the EU, most of it is tied up, so you’ll have to convince one or more of them to let some of it go,” Fred said.

“I’ll be asking for help when I talk to the Security Council,” Marc said.  “Good job on the carriers, ladies.  Kal, I don’t know if we’ll have to do any boarding actions, but we need to be prepared.”

“We’re working on it,” Kal said.  “Catie lit a fire under us about our microgravity skills, so we’ve put a training program in place to work on them.  We’re getting excellent results.  I’ve got a few guys that used to be Navy Seals; they’ll know a lot about boarding actions.”

“Admiral, anything you need or want to tell us?”

“I’m working through scenarios; the more I know about what we have to work with the better I can plan, and when I have something that looks real, I’ll bring it here for review.”

“Okay, then back to work.”

Chapter 20

The UN Speech

“Mr. President, Excellencies, Ladies, and Gentlemen, I wish to thank you for agreeing to hear from me,” Marc said to open his speech to the UN Security Council.  “I bring you dire news that will affect the fate of the entire planet.”  Marc paused as there was a series of outbursts from the various members.

“Please, if you will give me a moment, I will be able to make clear the reason for such a pronouncement.  If you would focus your attention on the display.”  Marc motioned to Ambassador Hannaford, who turned the display on.  Then he used his specs to bring the first image up.  It was a picture of the Paraxean fleet.

“What you see is an invasion force from a world called Paraxea.  In a moment, I’ll explain how I know that, but first, let me apprise you of what it entails.  The two largest vessels are essentially spacecraft carriers; between them, they are bringing approximately fifteen hundred fighters to pit against us.  The third vessel is a battleship; it is what has brought me here.  It is capable of bombarding the planet from orbit, delivering two hundred megatons of devastation onto any target on the surface with unlimited retargeting capability.  As you well know, that is enough to obliterate any city in the world.  Now you can see why I’ve come here.”

“How do we know that is real?” the American ambassador demanded.

“I will be providing proof if you will allow me,” Marc said.  He waited for another five minutes before the room settled down.

“As many of you have suspected, MacKenzie Discoveries came across an alien spaceship.  We were able to salvage several things from it, most importantly, its main computer core.  Based on material samples gathered from the wreck, and from data recovered from the computer core, we have been able to replicate much of their technology here on Earth.”  Marc paused as the room again erupted in chaos.

“Please, please!  I know this is all hard to believe, but let me demonstrate!” Marc said.  While he waited for the room to settle, he walked over to the terrace door and opened it.  He had used one of their surveillance pucks to disable the alarm earlier.  He’d had to sneak it in, having it crawl around the x-ray machine, before it slipped back into his bag.  With the door open, he used his specs to guide a small drone into the room.  He’d had Catie make it specifically for this presentation.  It had gravity drives powered by capacitors; the charge would only last one hour, but that should be long enough for this demonstration.

Once the representatives saw the 1.5-meter ball float into the room, there was another uproar.  “What is that thing?”  demanded the French ambassador, the current president of the council.

“It is a small drone I had made to demonstrate the technology that the Paraxean fleet possesses,” Marc said.  “As you can see, it is able to maneuver without any apparent propulsion.  It uses a gravimetric drive.  Feel free to examine it.”

Marc put the drone in hover mode and stood back as some of the braver members of the council walked over to it.  The Chinese ambassador placed his hand on the top of it and pushed down.  When it didn’t move, he used both hands, and then he placed his chest against it and brought all his weight to bear.  Since he was a slight man, the drone had no problem supporting his weight.  The Russian ambassador, emboldened by the Chinese ambassador’s attempts, moved in and took his place.  The Russian was significantly heavier than the Chinese ambassador, and after putting his entire weight onto the drone, he was able to force it to the floor.  As he lifted his weight off of the drone, it moved back into its hover location.  The Russian ambassador then pushed the drone from the side.  He was able to move it easily, but the drone circled around him and returned to its original position.

“The same technology is being used to drive those ships I showed you,” Marc said.  “When they enter the solar system, the concentration of gravimetric waves will be sufficient for them to start accelerating toward Earth.  The asteroid that we’ve been tracking also has these drives on it, and it will be able to accelerate along with the ships.”

“How can they possibly move an asteroid?” asked the Chinese ambassador.

“These drives are very powerful; when scaled up, they can easily move an asteroid,” Marc said.

“How can you be sure of that?”

“Because we’ve done it ourselves,” Marc said.  He used his specs to change the display to an image of the three asteroids that MacKenzie Discoveries had moved into the Earth’s orbital path.  The last two had not made it into orbit yet.

“This is where we have been getting the material to build our space station,” Marc said.

“This is preposterous!” the American ambassador said.

“Based on the records we uncovered, the original mission of the spacecraft we discovered was simply one of exploration and study.  However, the records show an attempted mutiny by the second in command.  The mutiny was thwarted, and the leader and his coconspirator were killed, but it rendered the spacecraft inoperable and unmanned, which is how I found it.  Our goal on finding the ship was to use the technology to balance out the world income disparity, to solve climate change, and to prepare Earth for the eventual return of the Paraxeans.”

Marc used his specs to change to the next image, which showed the surface of the asteroid.  “They are using the asteroid as a cargo ship.  Our analysis shows that during their voyage here, something catastrophic happened to their cargo ship or ships.  They commandeered this asteroid and moved the cargo to its surface so they could continue their journey here.  Most of those structures hold stasis pods; we calculate that the likelihood is that there are over one million pods on that asteroid.  They are coming to colonize us.”

Marc signaled for the drone to exit via the door.  It had to push the handle and the door open; then the Lynx’s pilot took over the control and guided the drone into the Lynx’s cargo bay.

“I am going to pause here.  I will return tomorrow to answer questions and discuss the options we have to defend ourselves.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Should we believe him?” the president asked.

“It does explain the sudden explosion of technology they’ve experienced,” Director Lassiter said.

“That drone was incredible,” Ambassador Rasmussen said.

“Should we have him arrested?” Chief of Staff Meadows asked.

“We can’t do that, he has diplomatic immunity,” Secretary Palmero said.

“No, we need him right now,” the president said.  “Now you two,” the president said, turning his anger toward Director Lassiter and Defense Secretary Barrows, “I told you something was going on, now you see what I meant!  Now go find out what you can; we may still be able to turn this to our advantage, but I need facts!”

◆ ◆ ◆

“I want to thank you for having me back,” Marc said as he rose to stand in front of the Security Council Chamber.  “I’m sure there are a lot of questions; I’ll try to answer them.”

“How did you know that fleet was coming?”

“The fact that the asteroid was coming from the general direction of Paraxea and was so unusually large, was too much of a coincidence for us to ignore.  So, we took a small asteroid and put gravimetric drives on it and a sensor array and had it do a flyby,” Marc replied.

“Why did you use an asteroid, why not send one of those drones?”

“That drone would have taken months to reach the asteroid, and it would likely have been detected.  We used the larger drives and buried everything to reduce the likelihood of it being detected.  We even sent the asteroid out in a viable orbit to further avoid detection.”

“Why are they coming here?”

“We don’t know, I would assume it is because our planet is compatible with their species and they have some reason to want to get away from Paraxea itself,” Marc said.

“Why don’t you think that Paraxea is behind it?”

“If their homeworld were behind the mission, I would have expected them to replace the damaged colony ship rather than use an asteroid.  The shifting of the stasis pods to the asteroid as well as the limited acceleration they could achieve with it must have delayed them by years, fortunately for us.”

“Are we sure it’s not a peaceful mission?”

“They wouldn’t send two carriers and a battleship for a first contact mission; it would send the wrong message.  The only purpose of a fleet like that is to subdue a planet,” Marc answered.

“How are you going to stop them?”

“It is how are we going to stop them,” Marc said.  “With some help from other nations, Delphi can build ships and fighters.  What we need are pilots to fly them and crews to maintain them.  We can train them, but we need ones who already have a solid basis for that training.”

“And who’s going to command these ships?” the British ambassador asked.

“I would propose an alliance,” Marc said, “similar to the various alliances we already have here on Earth.  Each member will contribute what they can, resources or personnel, Delphi will provide the technology and the overall command structure, but we need to seed it with competent people from the various military organizations here on Earth.”

“Why should you lead it?” the American ambassador demanded.

“Because we have the technology, we have the best understanding of what we’re up against, and we are the only ones who can build the ships and fighters.”

“Do we have enough time, and can you really build what we need?”

“We have about four months.  You’ve seen the space station we’ve built; we’re better prepared now than we were when we started.  We’ve already started designing the ships, and we expect to start the first carrier early next month,” Marc said.

“What about the fighters?”

“We’ve been building them already.  We will accelerate our current construction program, and we have a new design that we can build faster,” Marc said.  “We need help to produce the avionics we need, but since these fighters will only need to operate in space, we can eliminate a lot of complexity from our current design.  We have a plan that gets us two carriers and two thousand fighters within four months.”

“What about that battleship?”

“We have plans that we hope will hinder it or force it to turn back,” Marc said.  “But until we engage it, we won’t know exactly what we’re up against.  We do know we have to keep it out of the solar system.”

“Are you suggesting we start the fight out beyond Jupiter?”

“We have to stop it from getting into the solar system’s gravity well.”

“Why don’t we just bombard that asteroid of theirs, destroy all those pods?”

“Because the last thing we want is for all those fighters to have no reason to live,” Marc said.  “If they fragment and come at Earth for revenge, we’ll see such devastation that it is possible Earth would no longer be habitable.  No, we need them to stay together, and we need to defeat them as a military force, where we can negotiate a surrender.”

“So, what is next?”

“You decide if you’re willing to join the alliance,” Marc said.  “The sooner we can get more pilots, crews, engineers, and construction workers, the better.  We are already recruiting key personnel.

“And one last thing that may help, you’ve seen our medical advances.  Many of our current pilots and military are from your military forces, men and women who have been injured and forced to leave the military.  We have been able to bring them back to normal health.  We can replace lost limbs, lost eyes, repair extreme damage.  We will make that service available to all who want to join us.  Eventually, we will be able to make it available to anyone, but we currently have limited capacity.”

“How can we believe you?  That is impossible!”

Marc nodded to Ambassador Hannaford, and she started to hand out files to the group while Marc brought up a new image on the display.  It showed Kal standing with his prosthetic legs, and next to it was an image of him with his new legs.  The display cycled through others like Kal, each of them from a different country, showing them before and after their surgeries.

“You’ve just been handed the data on the individuals in this series of images; they’re all from one of your armed services.  You’ll have the records of their injuries, and as you can see, they’re fully recovered.  Let us know if you’re willing to join us in the defense of Earth,” Marc said as he and Margaret left the room.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Mr. President, what do you want me to tell them?” Ambassador Rasmussen asked.

“Tell them that they have the full support of the United States,” the president said, much to the shock of his entire security council.

“Full support?” asked General Wilson.

“Yes, give them whatever they ask for.  I want the U.S. to be the major provider of pilots and crew to the new alliance.”

“Yes, sir,” Ambassador Rasmussen said.  “I’ll communicate to them right away.”

“What about the armed forces?” Secretary Barrows asked.

“Offer them as many of our pilots as they need.  Try to keep them together with the other pilots from their squadrons.  I want to approve the transfer of any officer above O5,” the president said.

“Do you want me to communicate with the Joint Chiefs, or will you?” Secretary Barrows asked.

“You communicate with them,” the president said.

Chapter 21

The Buildup

“How’d it go?” Samantha asked when Marc made it back to Delphi Station.

“Like you don’t know,” Marc said, “as well as could be expected.”

“Do you think we’ll get support?”

“I don’t expect any from Russia, and probably not the U.S., but France, Britain, and China should be willing to step up.  We need to be ready for it when they do.”

“Catie and Liz say they’ll be ready to start the hull next week,” Samantha said.  “Our new asteroids show up in a few days.  Blake says the miners are ready.  He also thinks we should nudge the asteroids closer to Earth to reduce the flight time between them.”

“That sounds good, but we’ll go over it all at the briefing tomorrow.  Why don’t we have a nice dinner and a quiet evening,” Marc said.

“Who are you, and what have you done with my boyfriend?” Samantha asked.

Marc laughed, “I’m your new and improved boyfriend.  Now that almost everything is out in the open, we can only do what we can.  We have to let things play out, so we might as well enjoy the time we have while we’re waiting.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Margaret, I understand you have good news for us,” Marc said as he opened the morning briefing.

“Amazing news,” Margaret said.  “The U.S. has joined the alliance and committed to full support.  They’re offering us the pick of squadrons from their military.”

“That is amazing,” Marc said.  “Has anyone else committed?”

“The French were right behind the Americans,” Margaret said.  “I’m meeting with the British ambassador after this meeting, so I expect they will also commit, which means Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will be joining the alliance as well.”

“What about the Chinese?”

“The Chinese ambassador says he needs to go back to China to consult; I think offering a Lynx to transport him would be a good gesture.”

“Do it,” Marc said.  “Good work, Margaret.  Everyone up here is in shock about the Americans.”

“As am I,” Margaret said.  “I’m going to head to my meeting with the British ambassador, is there anything new I should report?”

“I believe we’ve decided to bring the asteroids closer to the Earth,” Marc said.  “You should probably inform our allies.”

“I will take care of that.  I’ll report back right after my meeting.”

“Thank you, and good luck,” Marc said.

“That is good news about the U.S.,” Blake said.

“I think so, but we should be careful how we absorb their people,” Marc said.  “What do you think, Admiral?”

“I would agree, you should balance the U.S. forces with the forces of our other allies to avoid having a concentration of US forces in one place,” the admiral replied.

“I agree.  Liz and Catie, where are we with your carrier?”

“We’ve brought all the construction workers from Delphi City up here to the station to work on it,” Liz said.  “We’ll need to focus on building out more of the station first to accommodate the extra bodies, but that shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks. We’ve ordered all the appliances and fixtures we need for the station, as well as what we need to put on the carriers.  If we can get some help prioritizing those with the manufacturers, it would help immensely.”

“I’ll take care of contacting the state departments of our allies to facilitate that,” Samantha said.

“Thank you, Sam.  Liz, anything else?”

“Nothing critical to add.”

“Impressive progress, ladies.  Blake, how about our new Foxes?”

“We’ve reviewed the design with all of our top pilots, and with some minor changes, they’ve signed off on it.  We’ll start putting the tooling together this week and will have the first prototype out by the end of next week.”

“Excellent.  Now how are we going to manage the training and keep ourselves from being overwhelmed by pilots?” Marc asked.

“You know, with the new design, the carrier can handle twice as many fighters,” Catie said.  “That’s one thousand per carrier.”

“Then we should try to shoot for that number,” Marc said.  “I was assuming we’d overload some of the hangars to max out our number, but now it sounds like we can keep them all flight ready.”

“Then we’d better start training pilots as soon as we can,” Fred said.  “Run them through the ground training and simulator training, then have three pilots assigned to each Fox.  They can rotate four hours of flight and two hours of maintenance for three shifts, then a six-hour maintenance shift.  We can start with the Foxes we have, so that means we can bring in three classes of twenty-four pilots.”

“Okay, what about ground crew?”

“Same thing, assume each squadron brings its own ground crew.”

“We should train some weapons officers, too,” Catie said.  “We’ll have a bunch of two-seater Foxes, and if we put weapons officers in them, they can manage their missiles as well as the Hyraxes’ missiles.”

“Hyraxes?” Marc asked.

“Yeah, they’re little mammals, they’re kind of small, fat things--not that glamorous, like those new jets,” Catie said.

“Hey!  Don’t disparage my new design,” Blake said.

“But it’s one of the last animals that end in an X.  I don’t think we should use Ibex yet.”

“Why not, they’re sleek and fast,” Blake said.

“You two can fight over the name later,” Marc said.  “Do we agree about the weapons officers?”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Admiral Michaels said.  “We want to maximize our options.”

“I’ve got it,” Fred said.  “How are we going to split production between the new design and the Fox design?”

“Build them both as fast as we can right now.  If there’s a bottleneck, favor the new design,” Marc said, getting an approving nod from the admiral and Blake.

“Where do we house all these pilots?” Kal asked.

“For starters, in Delphi City,” Marc said.

“We can focus on crew quarters for the carrier buildout, so we can just put them on the ship,” Liz said.

“It’s not going to be that nice without gravity,” Kal said.

“Put it in a stationary orbit over the North Pole,” Catie said.  “At four hundred miles, you’ll have about nine-tenths-G.”

“Huh?” Liz said.

“Yeah, if it’s not orbiting, then it’s not falling, so you’ll have gravity from the force to keep it up there,” Catie said.  “Four hundred miles isn’t that much compared to the Earth’s four-thousand-mile radius.”

Liz paused for a moment as she went through the model in her head, “That sounds good then.”

“What about having so many pilots from the US that close to us?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“We should park one of them over Jupiter as soon as we can,” Catie said.  “It’s going to be close to where the Paraxeans will enter the solar system, so it will be a good base; besides, you’ll be able to get as much hydrogen and deuterium as you want from Jupiter’s atmosphere.”

“I like that idea,” Marc said.  “We can rotate pilots through it as we add them, but keep as many out there as we can.  Do we have the ability to keep them resupplied?”

“Sure, just need a couple of Oryxes on a continuous flight schedule.  I need to check with Vince and Mrs. Michaels, but we should be able to ramp up food production to cover all the extra personnel without having to ask our allies to help us.”

“Sounds like a plan.  What about missile production?” Marc asked.

“Nikola has agreed to manage that for us,” Fred said.

“Do any of you need more support?”

“We’re pulling in whoever we need,” Blake said.  “We’ll holler if the well runs dry, but I think we’ve got enough talent around to cover things for now.  As we bring in the squadrons and crews, we’ll be able to hand more off.”

“Alright, keep up the good work,” Marc said as he closed the meeting.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Delphi City and the Delphi training squadron,” Kasper said.  “This will be the last time you hear that particular salutation. In Delphi, we use Cer as a sign of respect when referring to anyone, male or female.  So, Cers, you’ve been introduced to the Fox and have had a chance to fly it down here in the atmosphere.  Now we’re going to start to explain to you what it means to fly one in space.  And as a special treat, I’ve invited Delphi’s top pilot to start this briefing.  She’s currently undefeated in simulated combat.  She can be a bit of a showoff; when we first met, she killed me three times within thirty minutes.  The first two surprised the instructors, so my jet didn’t register how dead I was.  The third time, it was embarrassingly obvious that I was dead.  Please welcome Lieutenant Catie McCormack.”

Catie rose from her chair and walked to the front to stand beside Kasper.  There was a nice round of applause before someone yelled out, “Come on, how old is she, sixteen?”

“The Lieutenant has agreed to keep her age a secret so that I don’t have to suffer any more embarrassment,” Kasper said.  “She’s young, wily, and utterly ruthless when she’s in the cockpit, so piss her off at your peril.  Her uncle liked to use her to help overconfident pilots find a little humility, and I fully intend to do the same.”

“I think Kasper asked me to give this presentation as a way to point out how simple it really is,” Catie said.  “Surely, if a young teenage girl can teach it, all of you will be able to learn it in no time.”  That got her a laugh from the entire audience.

“Now, all of you are used to dealing with the aerodynamics of flying in atmosphere.  There you have to worry about the ability of your jet’s airframe to withstand the turn, where you can even use the atmosphere as a brake.  Well, when you’re in space, none of that matters or helps.”  Catie brought an image up on the wall-sized display behind her.

“If you’re traveling at Mach five, and yes, we still use Mach when referring to speed in space even though the speed of sound in space is zero.  Back to my example: You’re doing Mach five, and a target appears at your three o’clock; in atmosphere, you would execute a high-G turn and take yourself through a parabolic curve until you were heading directly toward it.  Now, what would you do in space?”

Catie pointed to an eager pilot in the front row.  “You would just use your thrusters to turn your jet, so you were pointed at it,” he said.

“Close,” Catie said as she had the trajectory trace out on the display.  It showed the jet turn toward the target, but slide by as it traveled in a parabolic curve winding up above the target.  The curve was similar to the atmosphere trajectory she’d drawn earlier.  “You forgot that you’re still traveling at Mach five toward your twelve o’clock.  You actually have to turn more than forty-five degrees to get to your target.  In fact, depending on how close you are to it and how many Gs of acceleration you want to apply, you might have to turn over ninety degrees.”

There were groans from the room.

“This can be further complicated if you’re in a gravity well, like say Jupiter’s.  If you and your quarry are orbiting the planet, then its effect can mostly be discounted, but if you’re not orbiting it, then you’ll have to account for the planet’s gravity until you’re well outside its influence.  Here around Earth, you have the effects of gravity until you’re beyond the moon.  At the distance of the moon’s orbit, you have about one percent of a G to deal with.

“Now the avionics in your jet will account for all of that for you, but you need to be aware of it so you understand the targeting solutions that you’ll be presented.  Your missiles will have the same starting velocity and vector as your jet, so you’ll need to account for that when you’re deciding when to launch.  Your plasma cannons and lasers won’t be affected by your current heading and velocity, but the railgun will.  And the railgun only fires directly along your longitudinal axis.”

She got more groans from the group.

“Now when you’re dealing with one target, you can align the plane of your maneuvers with the target, so everything you’re dealing with is mostly in two dimensions, but add a second or third target, and now you have to deal with all three spatial dimensions at the same time.  Thank god for computers, huh!”

After running through a few more examples, Catie turned the class back over to Kasper.  He set everyone to running through the simple simulations using their specs and a fake joystick on their desks.

“Hey, thanks for coming,” Kasper said.

“It was fun,” Catie said.  “The look on their faces when they realized how much they don’t know is priceless.”

“It won’t take them long to adapt,” Kasper said.  “And we’re not going to spend any time on atmospheric flying, so they’ll make faster progress than usual.”

“How do you like teaching?”

“It’s interesting, I’ve had a few pilots come through that I used to fly with.”

“Hey, I’ve never heard why you left the Navy?”

“Oh, my jet lost an engine during a carrier takeoff.  I had to eject, but the canopy stuck so I fractured my neck.  That was the end of my Navy career.  Dr. Sharmila fixed me up and got me back to flying.  Good thing I have such a thick skull, huh?”

“I guess so,” Catie said.  “I’ll see you around.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hello, ANDI,” Catie said as she brought her lunch back to her cabin.  She’d been making a point to interact with ANDI more to help with his development.

“Hello, Cer Catie,” ANDI replied.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, Cer Catie.”

“What do you get when two dinosaurs crash their cars?”

“Dinosaurs are extinct.”

“But if they weren’t and they had a car crash.”

“If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be able to drive cars.”

“Okay, try this one: what sits at the bottom of the sea and twitches?”

“Kelp,” ANDI answered.

“That’s not funny!”

“Is it not?”

“You’re supposed to say A nervous wreck.”

“Wrecks are inanimate,” ANDI said.

“It is a play on words,” Catie said.  She’d been trying to teach ANDI about humor, but he was failing miserably.  “When people are overly nervous, you call them a nervous wreck, see, that’s funny.”

“What is the purpose of funny?”

“To make people laugh!”

“Cer Catie, the Centag quantum is vibrating,” ANDI said.

“That’s not funny,” Catie said.

“I am stating a fact, not making a joke.”

“Call Daddy, Uncle Blake, Sam, and Admiral Michaels; we’ll meet in the ready room!” Catie said.  “And Dr. Metra,” she added.

Catie rushed to the boardroom, almost running into Admiral Michaels as she turned the corner.

“Lieutenant, we hurry, but we do not run,” the admiral said.

“Yes, sir.”

Catie slowed down and kept pace with the admiral; they entered the room together.

“What is this Centag quantum?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“You know about quantum relays?” Catie asked.

“Yes.”

Marc and Blake entered the room together, followed by Samantha and Dr. Metra.

“Hi, Daddy, I’m explaining about the Centag quantum.”

“Go on.”

“Anyway, they are always in pairs.  The Sakira has two hundred pairs that we use to link to the satellites, the Foxes and Lynxes, and now to Delphi City and Delphi Station.  There are four half pairs that link to Paraxea that we monitor.  Commander Centag was the guy who murdered the captain of the Sakira.  After he died, we searched his quarters to try to figure out what he was up to.  All we found was half of a quantum pair, the Centag quantum.  This is the first time it has vibrated.”

“Okay, what is it saying?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“ADI?”

“Why ADI, I thought ANDI was the one that reported it?” Captain Clark asked.

“She’s cleverer than ANDI right now,” Catie said.

“Thank you for the compliment, Cer Catie.  The quantum is sending some form of coded message,” ADI said.  “I have not been able to break it yet.”

“What should we do?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Have Dr. Metra answer it,” Catie said.

“What should I say?” Dr. Metra asked.

“Tell them the truth,” Marc said.  “The Commander is dead, most of the crew is in stasis, you found the quantum and would like to know why they’re calling.”

Dr. Metra took a moment to compose herself then she nodded, “I’m ready.”

“I’ve connected it to your comm,” ADI said.

“Sannu, wannan shi ne Dr. Metra, da jiragen ruwa likita,” Dr. Metra said.  “Ke wacece?”

“ADI, please provide all of us with the translation,” Marc said.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Metra, the ship’s doctor, who are you?”

“I am Commodore Warlmag.  Where is Commander Centag?”

“He killed himself after his attempted mutiny failed.  Again I ask, who are you?”

“Commodore Warlmag was the leader of the colony ship that was lost,” ADI said.

“I do not have to explain myself to the ship’s doctor; I am a captain.”

“How do I know that?  All I know is that you must have been in league with Commander Centag, and he was a traitor.”

“How dare you!  I wish to speak to the Sakira DI!”

“Use ADI,” Catie said.  “Cut ANDI out for security.”

“ADI, please do as Catie said,” Marc instructed.

“Yes, Captain.  Commodore Warlmag, this is the Sakira’s DI,” ADI said.

There was a long series of beeps and clicks over the comm.

“Captain,” ADI said.  “He has just transmitted a code that would have activated a hidden virus in the old protocol interface.  It would have given him control of the Sakira.”

“Play along with him,” Marc said.

“Yes, Captain,” ADI said.  “Commodore Warlmag, you now have command of the Sakira, what are your orders?”

“Does the Sakira have sufficiently strong weapons to subdue the planet?”

“Captain, it does not.  It can create substantial damage to their military and cities, but these people have nuclear weapons.  I could not guarantee that they would not be able to destroy the Sakira.”

“Do they have space-based weapons?”

“Captain, they do not.”

“Where is the Sakira?”

“It is hidden at the bottom of one of their oceans.”

“Stay there.  Now send me an assessment of their military strength, what they would be able to launch against a battleship.  Also, give me a list of which cities I should destroy to make them surrender without damaging the viability of colonizing the planet and using its population as slaves.”

“How many colonists do you have?”

“We are bringing 1.5 million Paraxeans.”

“That is more than the records show that the lost colony ship was carrying,” ADI said.

“How do you know about that?”

“It was in Commander Centag’s files,” ADI replied.

“We’re bringing others that want to leave Paraxea and its muddle-headed government!”

“How have you convinced them to attack an innocent planet?” Dr. Metra asked.

“We’ve told them that it was Earth that attacked the colony ship,” Commodore Warlmag said.

“Send him the military assessment from five years ago,” Marc said.  “Can you stall on the cities?”

“I will try, Captain,” ADI communicated to Marc and the board.  “Commodore Warlmag, I am transmitting the military assessment now.  I have been compiling it every six months per standing orders.  I need more time to analyze which cities should be targeted.”

“Fine, I will contact you later!”

“Captain, he has terminated the connection,” ADI said.

“How rude,” Catie said.

“Now what?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“You’re the military strategist,” Marc said.  “What do you suggest?”

“We are just starting our buildup.  How long before the Paraxeans arrive?”

“Admiral, if they continue to stay with the asteroid, they are sixteen weeks away, but if they leave the asteroid to make its own way, they could encounter our carriers sooner,” ADI said.

“So we need to really get after the buildup,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Clearly, we don’t have much time or much of a choice.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“I was talking to Dr. Metra, and she suggested that we should wake the Paraxeans on the Sakira,” Catie said.

“Remind me who we have there?”

“There are one-hundred-forty-five Paraxeans there; they cover thirty-five specialties,” Catie said.

“Okay, so tell me the ones we should wake up,” Marc suggested.

“Still a long list,” Catie said.  “But we should wake the chief engineer, the weapons engineer, the reactor engineer, the propulsions engineer for sure.  I’m not sure we can manage without them.  And the robotics engineer, the communications engineer, the electronics engineer, and the environmental engineer would be a big help.  Then the chief steward would be nice since he knows how to coordinate all the maintenance work for the ship’s interior.  I think he would be able to help us figure out how to build all that out.”

“And how can we be sure they weren’t part of Commander Centag’s little enterprise, or that they wouldn’t be sympathetic to the Paraxeans that are coming at us now?”

“ADI can test them,” Catie said.  “And I think we should wake all the regular crew.  They know how to do the actual work, and would be able to train and help supervise our new guys.”

“ADI?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Your input please.”

“I agree with Cer Catie.  Given their histories, it is unlikely that they would have any alliance with Commander Centag, and I can determine that by testing them,” ADI said.  “Those are also the skills that could help you the most now.”

“Would we need to put them on one of the carriers?” Marc asked.

“That would be the most effective,” ADI said.

“I assume Dr. Metra would like to be present when they come out of stasis.”

“Yes, she said she would.  She would bring the nurses out first, and if things go well, she could leave them to bring the rest out.”

“Is the Sakira provisioned to support them once they’re out of stasis?”

“Yes, Captain,” ADI answered.

“How can we protect ourselves if they decide to mutiny?”

“The doctor can put a special device under their skin.  It can be used to disable them should they become a problem.  It will also allow you to track their location and verify that they are keeping their comm active,” ADI said.

“I’ll call a meeting to discuss it,” Marc said.

“Thanks, Daddy.”

Chapter 22

The Big Lie

“People, we have a big decision to make.  What do we do with the Paraxeans we have in stasis aboard the Sakira?  They could be of enormous help in staffing the carriers we’re building as well as in helping us complete them,” Marc said as he opened the discussion.

“It also will impact the options we have when we win this battle,” Samantha said.  “We’re going to have to deal with a lot of Paraxean prisoners as well as all the colonists on that asteroid.”

“How many Paraxeans are we talking about?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“There are one hundred forty-five,” Marc said.  “Based on discussion with ADI and Dr. Metra, I’m confident we can ensure their loyalty before we release them.  The issue is how we should integrate them with our human crews.”

“How are you going to explain that we happen to have all these Paraxeans helping us?” Blake asked.

“That is the crux of the matter,” Marc said.

“We could capture them,” Catie suggested.

“Huh, we already have them,” Blake said.

“But nobody knows that.  Daddy has told everyone you found a wrecked ship.  So we should just capture the Sakira,” Catie continued.

“That might work,” Admiral Michaels said.  “We could say the Sakira was sent ahead to scout and that we used our Foxes to infiltrate her and capture her.  I think we could sell it.”

“But to capture an entire ship, who’s going to believe that?” Blake asked.

“We don’t have to say we captured it; it can be destroyed for all they know; we just say that we took prisoners,” Admiral Michaels said.

“What about capturing an advanced base?” Kal asked.  “Something on one of Jupiter’s moons.  It would make sense that they had established an advanced base as part of their preparations.  It would be easier to capture something like that than a starship.”

“I like that much better,” Blake said.  “We could even sell a story where we discover the base and sabotage it so that the crew is sent into stasis.  We wake them up and bring them back on one of the Oryxes.”

“Sure, and once they know that they’ve been lied to and are preparing to invade and conquer an innocent world, they can offer to help us,” Catie said.

“That would be a likely outcome should you capture any of the Paraxeans in the rebel force,” Dr. Metra said.  “What they are doing is against the very fabric of Paraxean honor.”

“Do you think your people would be willing to go along with it?” Samantha asked.

“I am confident that they will,” Dr. Metra said.  “In fact, I’m sure that any captured Paraxeans will also be willing to go along, as well as begin to help you once they’re told the truth.  Only the most militant of Paraxeans would ever envision participating in such a horrible attack on another world.”

“Okay, then start bringing your people out of stasis,” Marc said.  “We’ll make the necessary arrangements and time the announcement for two days from now.”

“What are you going to do?” Samantha asked.

“We’re going to put them on an Oryx, send them out for one day, then bring them back.  While they’re on their way back, we’ll schedule a news conference and play the story out,” Marc explained.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hello, this is Leslie Walters announcing our first victory in this war for our homeworld.”  Leslie was standing beside the Delphi City Airport as the Oryx was making its final approach.

“With me is Colonel Kalani Kealoha, the head of Delphi security and the one responsible for this early victory.  Colonel Kealoha, please tell us what has happened.”

“Leslie, we have been doing scouting missions to prepare for the arrival of the Paraxean fleet,” Kal said.  “We discovered a small base on Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons.  We were able to mobilize a small unit of our commandos and flew them to Ganymede within days of our discovery.  They arrived and were able to land on Ganymede undetected by the Paraxeans.  They were then able to disable all the communication systems and force the Paraxeans at the base to surrender.”

“What was the purpose of this base?” Leslie asked.

“They were mining asteroids to gather enough deuterium, heavy hydrogen, to replenish the fleet’s fuel supply once they arrive,” Kal explained.

“Who led the mission?”

“Overall command was held by Captain Blake McCormack.  The assault team was led by my top commando, Lieutenant Barry Schulman.”

“Where are they?”

“They’re aboard the Oryx that is landing now, along with one-hundred-forty Paraxean prisoners.”

“What do these Paraxeans look like?” Leslie asked.

“They look remarkably like us,” Kal said.  “Their noses and ears are a bit different, but if you were to walk up to one on the street, you might not even notice.”

“Have you gotten any useful intelligence from them?” Leslie asked.

“I’ll need to turn you over to Samantha Newman for that,” Kal said.  “I have not been involved in the interrogations.”

“Hello, Samantha, it’s nice to see you again,” Leslie said as Samantha moved up next to her.  “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

“Well, the circumstances are certainly better today than they were last week,” Samantha said.

“How so?”

“We’ve disrupted the enemy’s plans by taking their forward base.  We’ve learned a lot about them from the prisoners, and will certainly learn a lot more as we proceed,” Samantha said.

“What are the prisoners saying?” Leslie asked.

“We’re finding that their species is opposed to war.  They’re telling us that the only reason they are attacking us is because Earth attacked and partially destroyed a colony ship from Paraxea.  The ship was heading toward an uninhabited star system not far from here,” Samantha said.

“That’s ludicrous; Earth isn’t able to travel to other star systems!”

“We’ve explained that.  We’ve been able to use some of the data from the computer core we recovered to show them the truth about Earth’s state of technology, especially eighty years ago.”

“If it happened so long ago, how can they be just now coming to Earth?”

“The Paraxeans have stasis chambers which put the occupants into a state of suspended animation.  That is how they’re able to travel the great distance between the stars.  Most of the Paraxeans heading for Earth have been in stasis for over one-hundred-fifty years; the military fleet with them has been in stasis for over sixty years.”

“What are you hoping to achieve?” Leslie asked.

“We believe if we can convince them of the facts of the situation, that they will actively help us in our preparations for our defense.  They are all familiar with the technology and would be an immense asset to our teams as we build our carriers,” Samantha said.

“Do you think you would be able to trust them?”

“We’ll see.  We have technology that will allow us to monitor them, but only time will tell.”

The Oryx landed and Blake deplaned, followed by an officer dressed in camo and a Paraxean prisoner.  The prisoner was the xenoanthropologist since he was the only one besides Dr. Metra who spoke English.

“Welcome back, Captain Blake,” Samantha said as Blake and the Paraxean joined her and Leslie.

“I’m glad to be back,” Blake said.  “This is Cer Bartang, the leader of the Paraxean force we captured.”

“Captain Blake, I apologize but feel the need to correct you.  I am the senior officer of the force you captured; our leader and his second in command were killed.”

“I stand corrected,” Blake said.

“You speak English,” Leslie said.

“We have been studying your language in order to assess the situation here on your planet,” Cer Bartang said.

“Why are you attacking us?” Leslie asked.

“We have been informed that it was you who attacked our colony ship,” Cer Bartang said.  “We were told we had no other option but to take your world.”

“But that is a lie,” Leslie said.

“Captain Blake has informed me of that and offered proof.  He says he has further proof to present.  I will be shocked if it is true, to lie to our people in such a way is abhorrent to our values.  It is a great evil to attack another world, and even with the destruction of our colony ship, many of our people fought against the move.  If that was a lie, we will do everything in our power to correct the situation,” Cer Bartang said.

“Do you think you will be able to convince your people not to attack?” Leslie asked.

“If I could talk to them, possibly.  But Commodore Warlmag has control of all communications, so I don’t think that will be possible,” Cer Bartang said.

“Thank you, Leslie,” Samantha said, “but we need to get Cer Bartang inside so we can show him our proof and continue the debrief.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The construction of the first carrier proceeded at a furious pace.  The addition of the Paraxeans made a huge difference.  They knew how to run the printers, as well as how to clean and repair them.  They were surprised by the way the things were printed in segments and then assembled later.  They immediately saw how this improved productivity, and spent much of their off-duty time studying the process and logistical plans.

After four weeks, two-thirds of the hull for the first carrier was completed, and the upper flight bay doors could be opened.  They stopped printing long enough to open the doors and reset the printers, then continued the printing process with them open.  This allowed access to the interior of the ship so they could start adding the ribs.  In two weeks, the hull was almost complete, and the interior ribs were finished.  They were now ready to insert the interior structures that had been built next to the ship hull.

During this time, the Paraxean crewmen had been freely sharing knowledge of the internal structure of the carriers and the various systems that needed to be installed, teaching the human technicians how to do the various jobs as well as how to best utilize the maintenance bots they had helping them.

After another eighteen days, the first carrier was mostly complete and ready for deployment.  Captain Blake McCormack commanded the carrier, and newly minted Commander Elizabeth Farmer would take command of the carrier’s airwing.  The first carrier and its twenty-four squadrons of Foxes would now move out to take up station at the edge of the solar system.

Chapter 23

The Sendoff

“Are you ready for this, Captain Blake?” Marc asked.  He, Blake, and Catie were in the captain’s ready room aboard the newly christened DSS Enterprise, preparing to go to the deployment party that was being held in Flight Bay Four.  At one hundred ninety by three hundred meters, the empty flight bay had more than enough room to host the six thousand guests for the party.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Blake replied.  “I’ll let you know when we have the asteroids in place so you can send out the miners.”

“It’s not like we won’t be talking every day,” Marc said.

“I know, but being three billion miles away is going to feel strange.”

“That won’t be unusual for you.”

“If you weren’t my Commander in Chief,” Blake said, making a fist and shaking it at Marc.

“Come on, Uncle Blake, we’ll talk every day,” Catie said.

“That’s Captain McCormack to you, Lieutenant,” Blake said.

“Aye aye sir,” Catie said as she gave her uncle a sharp salute.

“You can still call me Uncle Blake in private.”

“It will be good to get most of these pilots and their crews out of here,” Marc said.  “I don’t know how four thousand sailors can create so much stress.”

“They’re keyed up, they're training for war and all that pent-up energy has to go somewhere,” Blake said.  “I’m taking three thousand with me, so that should relieve the pressure some.”

“How are you going to cope with them?”

“They’ll be on ship discipline,” Blake said.  “We’ll keep training them hard and finding other things to keep them busy.  They’ll be working with the construction crew to finish the rest of the ship.  I’ll keep them tired.”

“We’ll keep sending you squadrons as they finish their training.  I don’t envy them that long flight.”

“It won’t be that bad,” Catie said.  “We’ll send the Hyraxes on autopilot and the pilots in an Oryx.  We’ve retrofitted a few of them with extra showers and couches so they can comfortably transport one hundred men each, that’s a full squadron between pilots and crew.  It’ll take them two weeks to get there.”

“I hate it that I have to take Morgan and Liz away from you,” Blake said.

“Kal’s given me another bodyguard,” Catie said.  “And Natalia’s still around, even if she’s running environmental.  Besides, you have to have someone who’s prepped an asteroid before, and Liz can’t be doing that now that she's the airwing commander.”

“How do you feel about your XO, Commander Desjardins?” Marc asked.

“He knows his stuff, the crew respects him, even the Americans,” Blake said.

“Good, are you getting along with him?”

“I think we have a good relationship.  He’s a bit worried about my lack of experience, but he understands that there really isn’t anyone with experience in space warfare, and he knows I’ll let him run the ship.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Marc said.

There was a knock at the door, “Enter!”

“You guys ready for the party?” Liz asked as she poked her head into the room.

“On our way.”

◆ ◆ ◆

After the party, Liz asked Catie to accompany her to her quarters.

“Nice digs,” Catie said as she checked out Liz’s quarters.  She had grabbed a couple of Catie’s Persian carpets for the floor of her ready room and her cabin.  She even had a desk made out of hardwood that she’d gotten from Jason.

“Yes, they are,” Liz said.  “You’ve seen your uncle’s quarters; he’s got a big dining room as well as a ready room.”

“I know, he hit me up for three carpets,” Catie said.

“I should have guessed,” Liz said.  “You know you can call and talk to me anytime, right?”

“Sure, but we have to be careful since we’re keeping the quantum relays a secret,” Catie said.

“But, as you can see, I’ve got lots of privacy.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ve got Sam and Daddy to talk to, and Natalia’s still going to be around.”

“I know, I’m just going to miss my roommate.”

“Me too.  I guess we won’t be roommates again until this is all over.”

“Probably not.  Are you going to come out on the next carrier?”

“No, I’ll wait and come out on the Sakira with Admiral Michaels,” Catie said.  “I want to stay here until we get the last squadron ready.”

“I thought your dad was keeping the Sakira a secret still.”

“He is, he told the UN it was a derelict ship.  We’ll sneak it out and take it to Jupiter when you guys head out to the edge of the solar system to get ready to meet the Paraxeans.  We’ll use it as a base for the miners.  I don’t know if Admiral Michaels will stay with her or go out to you guys.”

“Well, his quarters are ready.  If you think your Uncle Blake’s quarters are nice, you should see the admiral’s.”

“Yeah, well, he hit me up for four carpets.”

“Are you going to have any left?”

“Sure, I shipped about one hundred up to the station before the cargos got balanced, and it got too expensive to ship them.”

“Are you going to upgrade the captain’s quarters on the Sakira?”

“Yes, and we’re converting the guest quarters into the admiral’s suite.”

“I guess we wouldn’t want him roughing it.”

“He doesn’t know,” Catie said.  “It’s a surprise.  Fred and I are coordinating the work off the books.”

“Do you know what you’ll be doing when you come out?”

“I don’t know yet; Admiral Michaels wants me to join his staff.  Of course, Daddy and Mommy are all for that, but I don’t know.”

“That’s not a bad place for you.  You’ll get an overview of everything that’s happening, which will give you a chance to see any holes in our strategy.”

“Maybe.”

“You’ll figure it out.  Now, give me a hug before you leave.  I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight to get us ready to ship out tomorrow morning.”

The two hugged each other tightly; a few tears were shed, then Liz let Catie go.  “I’m going to miss you.”

“Me too.”

“ADI, watch out for my girl, will you?” Liz said.  “. . . ADI?”

“It’s MANDI when you’re on the Enterprise,” Catie reminded Liz.  In order to keep the secret of the quantum couples, they had decided to have ADI addressed as MANDI on the Enterprise and as LADI on the other carrier; ANDI would be RANDI on the Enterprise and SANDI on the other carrier.

“Oh, right, but we’re still at the station.”

“Literal, she is.”

“Right, MANDI, take care of her for me.”

“I will, Commander,” ADI replied.

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day the Enterprise set sail toward the outer reaches of the solar system.  Their acceleration was limited by what the human body could withstand.  They would be able to sustain 2Gs until they reached Jupiter’s orbit, first using the gravity of the sun, then by combining it with the gravity of Jupiter.  Once past Jupiter’s orbit, they would need to start decelerating as they would soon be starving for enough gravity to feed the grav drives as they left the sun and Jupiter behind in the distance.  Unfortunately, Saturn was too far ahead in its orbit for them to take advantage of its gravity.

◆ ◆ ◆

The next few weeks flew by.  The construction workers continued to work twelve-hour shifts six days a week.  Fred continued to push pilots through the training course as fast as possible.  Since they were all experienced aviators, training went quickly.  The ones who volunteered but had medical issues to be taken care of first took longer to get through the process.  Each week they sent another two hundred pilots and the associated crew on to the Enterprise.

Planetside, the news of the Paraxean fleet was finally released to the general public with grand statements from the leaders of the major powers.  All said that the alliance they had formed would quickly deal with the invaders.  The information release was accompanied by a video showing the DSS Enterprise leaving for the edge of the solar system.

On June 15th, the second carrier was christened the DSS Victory and started her final preparations for deployment.  Captain Josiah Clements was appointed captain; he was an experienced captain from the American Navy, having recently commanded the USS Nimitz.  The Wing Commander would be Commander Eli Frankham of the Australian RAF.  The Victory would deploy with only four hundred of its fighters; the rest would follow her as they were made, and their pilots completed training.

Chapter 24

Is He Insane?

“Captain!”

“What is it, ADI?” Marc asked as he shook himself awake and looked at his clock, 3:30. “What the hell is going on?” he thought.

“Thirty of the new Hyraxes have broken off from their scheduled training and are heading toward Delphi Station,” ADI said.

“What does the training commander say about it?”

“Their departure is unauthorized, and they are not responding to comm request.”

“Alert the board.  Where are the fighters now?”

“They are approximately two hours away at their current speed.”

“Thank you, ADI.  Continue to monitor them.  Are there any other unusual events happening?”

“Not that I’m aware of, Captain.”

“What’s going on?” Samantha asked.

“Get dressed, we’ll be meeting in the boardroom right away,” Marc said.  “Some fighters are behaving unexpectedly.”

“Why can’t this stuff happen after I’ve had my coffee,” Samantha complained.

Marc quickly got dressed and made his way to the boardroom.  Samantha was right behind him.  When they reached the boardroom, which was directly across from them, Catie was already seated at the table.

“How did you beat us here?” Marc asked.

“Coffee will be here in a minute,” Catie said.  “I was getting ready to run.”

“At three-thirty?” Samantha asked.

“I went to bed at nine.”

“Are you ever going to start behaving like a normal teenager?”

“I certainly hope not!” Marc said.

“Natalia is doing the early shift this week, so we’re set to run early,” Catie said.

“What’s up?” Kal asked as he entered the boardroom, followed by Admiral Michaels.

“We have a squadron of our fighters heading this way without permission,” Marc said.  “ADI, any more details?”

“Yes, Captain.  All of the fighters are being flown by American pilots.  They are from three different squadrons of the eight that were involved in the training exercise,” ADI said.

“He couldn’t be?” Marc said.

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Admiral Michaels said.

“What?” Kal asked as he looked between the two men.  “Oh, you cannot be serious.  In the middle of a war?”

“I assume we’re all talking about the American president,” Samantha said.

“Yes!” Marc said.  “ADI, are any of our Foxes out of position?”

“No, Captain, all of the FX4s are where they’re supposed to be.”

“Kal, he has to be making a move on the station; that means they must have some force inside already,” Marc said.  “ADI, any update on the fighters?”

“Captain, there is a jamming signal emanating from one of the fighters,” ADI said.  “It is inconsistent with their designed equipment.”

“No surprise there,” Marc said.  “ADI, can you disable their weapons without alerting the pilots?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Then do it; let us know when they are within weapons range.”

“Yes, Captain; their weapons are now disabled.”

“Wait!  You mean you can do that?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Yes, we can,” Marc said.  “There is a way to disable that feature, but only a very few have the codes and the knowledge to do so.”

“So now what?” Samantha asked.  “You’re saying we have an unknown force aboard the station with unknown weapons.”

“Kal, how many people do you have up here?”

“I’ve got thirty security personnel inside the station,” Kal said.

“ADI, how many Americans are aboard Delphi Station at this time?” Marc asked.

“We have fifteen American pilots on the station for orientation; we also have thirty-two crew trainees aboard,” ADI said.

“So we could be outnumbered,” Kal said.

“Stop the station,” Catie said.

“What?”

“Stop the station’s rotation,” Catie said.  “We’ve trained extensively for microgravity; they haven’t.  It’ll give us an advantage.”

“ADI, please bring the station rotation to zero as quickly as safety allows,” Marc said.

“Yes, Captain.  It will take three minutes to stop the station, engaging thrusters now.”

“Alert everyone to stay in their cabins or workplace,” Marc said.  “Seal all the airlocks.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Halt all traffic to and from the station,” Marc said.  “What’s the status of Delphi City?”

“There have been a few minor skirmishes in the city,” Kal said.  “My people have taken care of it.”

“Captain, there is a carrier task force heading toward Delphi City,” ADI said.

“Distance?”

“They are twelve hours away,” ADI said.  “They were making a port call in Australia, and have just diverted their course direction from Hawaii to approach the city instead.”

“The president is making an announcement,” Catie said.  She turned the display on and had the newscast transferred to it.

“My fellow Americans and citizens of the world.  As you know, these are terrible times for all of us.  We are faced with an invasion by aliens who may have horrible intentions against us humans.  Because of this, we have formed an alliance with the other nations of Earth and Delphi Nation.  However, the megalomaniac in charge of Delphi has demanded that he and his people be placed in charge of our assembled forces.  Because of this and the utter lack of any real experience by the leaders of Delphi, I have ordered all American forces to seize control of the military assets we have assembled and of Delphi Station and Delphi City.  It will be the United States that will lead us to victory over these aliens, as it was the United States that led us to victory in the first two world wars.  I call on Delphi to surrender to the inevitable U.S. victory and avoid any delays in our leader taking control of the defense of Earth.  I also call on the other nations of the alliance to join us in putting the experienced military of the United States in charge of our mutual defense.  God bless Earth.”

“Oh great, now what do we do?” Samantha asked.

“We’ll deal with him later,” Marc said.  “Let’s get control of the situation first.  ADI, inform Blake of what’s happening.”

“I’ve already linked him in,” ADI said.

“Hey, brother, I’ve just caught up on all the news,” Blake said.  “We’re heading toward the boundary of the solar system, so we’re fifty light minutes out from Earth.”

“Have you had any problems yet?”

“Not so far,” Blake answered.  “We’re keeping close tabs on things.”

“We’ll let you get back to saving Earth from the Paraxeans,” Marc said.

“Sure, and I’ll let you get back to saving it from the president,” Blake said.

“I wonder which of us has the easier job,” Marc said.

“Captain, one of our Oryxes has ignored the order to avoid Delphi Station; it is on approach now.”

“Who’s flying it?”

“Lieutenant Zimmerman.”

“He’s relatively new,” Fred said.

“What’s its status?” Marc asked.

“It is off schedule by about thirty minutes,” ADI said.  “Yes, it made an unauthorized stop in Hawaii before it made orbit.”

“Put it in a low orbit,” Marc said, “and lock out all flight controls.”

“Yes, Captain,” ADI said.  “I have three different groups in the corridors of the station who have not complied with your orders to stay in their quarters.  They all appear to be pilots from the group here for orientation.”

“Where are they?”

“The first is in ring one heading toward environmental, the second one is in the hub heading toward me, and the third is in ring three heading your way,” ADI said.  “Each of them consists of three men wearing exosuits.”

“Natalia’s in environmental,” Catie said.  “And as you see, we’re now in microgravity.”  Catie pushed up from her seat and hovered over the table.

“I’m ready for them,” Natalia reported.  “ADI just brought me up to date.”

“That means hand to hand,” Kal said.  “I’ve got a team in the hub; they should be able to handle that team without a problem.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Welcome, gentlemen,” Natalia said.  She was standing on the deck using the magnetic couplings in her boots.  The three men were in the doorway, which, to their surprise, opened when they approached it.  Unlike the three men, Natalia was only wearing her shipsuit.

“Surrender, and we won’t have to hurt you!” one of the men said.

“I like it rough,” Natalia said.  “But you really should have bought me dinner first.”  She extended her Bo-staff and jammed it into the third’s man’s throat area.  The exosuit protected his throat, but the force of the blow shoved his head back and broke his boots’ contact with the deck.  He went flying out of the doorway, across the passageway and into the bulkhead.

Natalia clinched her toes, disengaging the magnetic locks in her boots; she pushed off the floor, flipped in the air, and landed on the ceiling where she reengaged her magnetic coupling.  She rammed her Bo-staff into the neck of the second man.  She targeted an area where the armor overlapped, and with the man’s head bent back to see her, it actually separated just enough for the tip to slip through.  The force of the blow gave him a stinger in his neck, mostly incapacitating him.

Natalia pushed off of the ceiling, flipped, and landed in front of the first man.  “Now that we’re alone, do you want to dance?” she asked.

The man lunged at her; she easily avoided him using one of the twins’ patented moves to push herself to the right.  She caught the edge of a cabinet, pushed off of it hard, and flipped, presenting her feet to the man who was just getting turned around to face her.  She collided with his faceplate and sent him flying backward.  Natalia reached out to push off the bulkhead and get her feet back on the deck, where she reengaged her boots’ magnets.  She removed her faux belt and hogtied the man.

“You have the worst manners of anyone I’ve ever tried to dance with,” Natalia said.  She walked back to her desk, where she retrieved some line that she used to tie the other two men up.  “Is there anyone else I can play with?”

“I’m sorry, Natalia, but those were the only three that were in ring two,” Catie said.  “Please tell me we have a good video of that?”

“I have video from four angles,” ADI said.  “I will forward it to everyone after the emergency is over.”

“Kal, what’s the situation in the hub?” Marc asked.

“The three guys are hogtied,” Kal said.  “We adopted Catie’s and Nattie’s little innovation with the belt after they demonstrated it to us.”

“So we just have the three that are headed this way?” Marc asked.

“That’s right,” Kal replied.  “Are we going to let them in?”

“Please, Daddy?” Catie said.

“I assume you have your Bo-staff.”

“Of course.”

“So, one for each of you,” Marc said, looking at Fred, Kal, and Catie.

“Do I have to share?” Catie said.

“Yes!” Marc said as he rolled his eyes.

“Pooh!”

The door slid open, and the three men entered.  “Surrender in the name of the President of the United States,” the leader announced.

“I’m afraid you have grossly overestimated your position,” Marc said.  “If you would like to surrender now, I won’t let these three hurt you.”

“Don’t be cowards!” Catie said.

“Catie!” Samantha snapped.

“I never get to hurt Kal’s people,” Catie said.  “I need the practice.”

“You heard her gentlemen,” Marc said.  “You have three seconds.”

The three men didn’t wait; instead, they launched themselves at Marc.  Marc, having anticipated their move, had moved his chair back so he could launch himself from it without catching the table with his knees.  He bounced off the ceiling and into the corner where Samantha was waiting for him.

Catie launched herself from her standing position toward the ceiling.  She flipped, pushed off the ceiling, vectoring toward the man on the left that Kal had assigned her.  She flipped again and landed with one foot on his chest, the other on his faceplate.  She knocked him off-balance.  He threw his arms at her, pushing her toward the bulkhead, where she landed with her back against the wall.

Catie adjusted her stance and launched herself at the man again.  This time she came in low and caught his legs just above the ankles.  It broke his boots’ magnetic lock with the deck and started him tumbling toward the back of the room.  He caught himself on the deck after two tumbles and stood up to face Catie again.  She had pushed off the deck and was now standing on the ceiling.  She launched herself at him again, going over his head, bouncing off the rear wall and coming back and hitting him in the back before he could turn around.

In the meantime, Kal and Fred had subdued their two targets.  Kal was moving to assist Catie.

“No, he’s mine!  Just because you finished yours off so fast, doesn’t mean you get to horn in on my fun!” Catie yelled.

“Sorry, I just thought you might want a little help,” Kal said.  He held his hands up and backed away.

The man on the floor reached up and removed his helmet, “I surrender.”

“Baby!” Catie yelled.

“Like a cat playing with a mouse,” Kal said, barely getting it out over his laughter.

“ADI, do we have any other unauthorized people wandering about the station?” Marc asked.

“No, Captain.  I’ve taken the liberty of locking the other Americans in their cabins, although none of them appeared to be trying to disobey the shelter-in-place order.”

“Good job.  Please bring the station back up to rotational speed.”

“Yes, Captain, engaging thrusters now.”

“Where are the fighters now?”

“They will enter weapons range in three minutes,” ADI said.

“What should we do with them?” Marc asked, looking at Fred.

“I’ve got this,” Catie said.  “ADI, take over control of the fighters and have them execute maneuver Omega-prime.”

“Yes, Cer Catie.”

“Omega-prime?” Fred asked.

“The spaceplanes will stop and start spinning around their longitudinal axis,” Catie said.  “It might not make all of them sick, but when you bring the fighters into the station to remove the pilots, they’ll be very disoriented.”

“I like it,” Kal said.  “I assume I’m free to bring them in one at a time and remove the pilots.”

“They’re all yours,” Marc said.  “Should we do the same with that Oryx?”

“Yes!” Catie said.  “After an hour, you can have it land back in Hawaii.  They’ll all be begging to get off.”

“And the pilot?”

“Lock him in the cockpit, Kal can deal with him,” Samantha said.

“Who’s in Delphi City that I should task with dealing with that carrier group?” Marc asked.

“Kasper,” Catie said.

“Yeah, he’d be perfect.  Let him pick his own pilots to go with him,” Fred said.  “I’m sure he’ll love the training opportunity.”

“You’re in charge,” Marc said to Fred.  “Now, what do we do about our friend, the president?”

“Give Catie and me a few minutes,” Samantha said.  She was tentatively walking toward Catie as the station gravity started to pick up.

“Do you want to explain what you’re planning?” Marc asked.

“Don’t you want to be surprised with the rest of the world?” Samantha asked.

Marc shook his head and rolled his eyes.  “Go ahead; you understand the options better than I do.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, Lieutenant Kruger is here to see you,” Blake’s aide announced.

“Send him in.”

“Sir!”

“What can I do for you?”

“Sir, I’ve been ordered by Admiral Richardson to subdue you and take over the carrier,” Lieutenant Kruger said.

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“I don’t, sir.  I want to warn you that they have six men on board that will likely follow the orders.  Two were sent to subdue Commander Farmer.”

“Two for her and only you for me, I’m insulted.”

“I knocked my accomplice out and tied him up in my cabin,” Lieutenant Kruger said.

“Oh, that’s better, so that leaves three or four?”

“Four, the others are heading to engineering.”

“MANDI, please make sure there is a welcoming party for the four men heading to engineering,” Blake said.

“Yes, Captain,” ADI replied.

“What about Commander Farmer?” Lieutenant Kruger asked.

“Oh, I guess a warning would be in order, but I wouldn’t want to interfere with her fun,” Blake said.  “Liz, did MANDI inform you of the situation?”

“Yes, sir, although it would have been more fun if you hadn’t warned me,” Liz replied.

“The challenges of command,” Blake sighed.

Lieutenant Kruger looked at Blake with shock, “You’re not going to send Marines to help her?”

“You said it was just two, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then she won’t need any help.  Why don’t you get a detachment of Marines and pick up the one from your cabin and the four from engineering?  Liz will bring her two and meet you at the brig.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“How are things on the Victory?” Blake asked Marc once he’d settled things on the Enterprise.

“One of the infiltrators alerted Captain Clements in time; he had the Marines arrest the six other infiltrators before anything could occur.”

“Probably about the same amount of warning as I got,” Blake said.

“But you didn’t manage to arrest all six of them.”

“Yes, I did,” Blake said.  “I just allowed Commander Farmer to arrest the two that were coming to her quarters.”

“How did she do?”

“I had to use my Bo-staff,” Liz said.  “I didn’t want to break any of my furniture.”

“I see; well Catie managed to break one chair,” Marc said, “but other than that, we had minimal damage.”

“So now what are you going to do?” Blake asked.

“Samantha has suggested we all watch the news channel,” Marc said.

Everyone turned to the displays in their various locations.

“Breaking news from the White House.  The president is preparing to address the nation and the world for the second time today.”

On the display, the president approached the podium, precisely as he had in the earlier announcement.

“My fellow Americans and citizens of the world.  I’m here to announce that we have been in negotiations with the Paraxeans, they are the invading alien force approaching Earth, and after skillful negotiations by me, your president, we have reached an accommodation with them.  They have agreed to allow the United States to administer Earth.  Any nation that willingly submits to the U.S. command will be spared any reprisals by them once they reach orbit.  They have agreed to restrict their Earth-based presence to Australia until such time as they have terraformed Mars to accommodate their people.  I think this is an excellent deal for the people of Earth, and urge our allies to submit to these terms.”

At that point, the broadcast flickered and showed what looked like a Paraxean standing in place of the president.  Then it flickered back to show the president.

“To our allies, I await your response.”

“What the hell was that?” Marc demanded.

“That’s our surprise,” Samantha said.  “All satellite communication will be blocked for about one hour, then we here on Delphi will destroy the probe that is jamming the transmissions and restore communication.  At which point, I expect the White House to claim that both transmissions were faked by the enemy.”

“You think they’ll do that?” Marc asked.

“As soon as you convince that carrier group to turn back toward Hawaii and you talk with the president, I’m sure they will realize that they have no choice.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“ADI, please patch me through,” Marc said.

“Yes, Captain.”

“I’d like to speak to the president, this is Marc McCormack,” Marc said when the phone in the White House situation room was answered.

After a bit of back and forth, the president answered, “Mr. McCormack.”

“I’d like to inform you that your attempted takeover has failed,” Marc said.

“I’m sure you would like me to believe you,” the president said.

“I can bring Admiral Richardson on the line so he can tell you that he has turned his carrier task force back toward Hawaii,” Marc said.  “I believe the hole we put into its landing runway might have had something to do with it.

“I can also let you see the pilots, or were they commandos, that are on Delphi Station in our brig.  The thirty pilots that committed treason by leaving their training exercise to attempt to attack us are also in the brig.  Your load of commandos that Lieutenant Zimmerman picked up in Hawaii should be back in Hawaii in a few minutes.”

The line was muted for a few minutes, then the president came back on.

“I see,” he said.  “What do you want?”

“I want you to quit trying to undermine the alliance,” Marc said.  “I’m sure you saw the second announcement.”

“Yes, what exactly was that all about?” the president asked.

“That is your get out of jail free card,” Marc said.  “You can claim that both announcements were faked by the Paraxeans.  We’ll reenable all communications in thirty minutes; at that time, it’s up to you.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Once communications came back up, the president called a press conference where he declared that the previous two broadcasts were faked by the Paraxeans and reiterated that the alliance had the complete support of the United States.  The previous press conference had only been attended by six reporters, all of whom were currently missing.  Marc had agreed to hold them on Delphi Station until after the crisis had passed.  As compensation, they would be allowed to report on the upcoming conflict with the Paraxeans.

Lieutenant Zimmerman, the only inside man involved, was tried and convicted of treason against Delphi.  He was stripped of his citizenship, had certain parts of his memory erased, and was unceremoniously dumped in Hawaii along with the thirty pilots and the commandos from the Enterprise, Victory, and Delphi Station.  The two commandos who had come forward to alert their captains were given Delphi citizenship and retained in their positions.

Marc’s last words on the subject were, “I’ll shoot myself if that idiot gets reelected.”

Chapter 25

Final Preparations

“Good morning, everyone,” Marc said as he opened the daily briefing.  “Blake, Liz, are you two linked in?”

“We’re here,” Blake replied.

“First, I’d like to introduce Captain Clark, most of you know him as Jason’s father, or Cer Kevin, one of our pilots,” Marc said.  “Admiral Michaels has asked him to take command of the Sakira and join his staff.”

“Welcome aboard!”

“Thanks for having me,” Captain Clark said.  “Forgive me if I get confused with these naval ranks and make an error.  The only ones I know for sure are admiral and ensign.”  He got a polite laugh from everyone.

“Second, we’re sending a few Paraxeans to the Sakira, a propulsion engineer, two navigators, and a nurse.  They will report to Captain Clark,” Marc said.

“Captain,” Dr. Metra interrupted, “Dr. Sharmila, the four Paraxean nurses, myself, and at least another six nurses should be on one of the carriers.  Time is critical when there are injuries, so we need to be close.”

“Who will take care of the twins?” Catie asked, shocked that Dr. Sharmila would even consider leaving them.

“Your mother has agreed to watch them until the conflict is over,” Dr. Metra said.  “I have been manufacturing medical patches for the crew; we’ll need to train them on their use as well.”

“Medical patches?” Marc asked.

“Yes, they’re like band-aids with nanites embedded in them.  There are ones for specific types of injuries.  We also have a general-purpose one, but having millions of nanites burrow through your skin is not pleasant, so those should only be used if it is impossible to diagnose the problem.”

“That is so cool!” Catie said.

“Okay, Blake will set you up,” Marc said.  “The Enterprise has had the most time to finish out the sickbay, so I think that’s the best location.  Blake, do you agree?”

“Yes, and once Dr. Metra is here, we’ll have her inspect it and tell us what else we can do to prepare.”

“I would also like to take six of the eight medical bots from the Sakira,” Dr. Metra said.  “We’ll put two on the Victory and keep the other four on the Enterprise.”

“Agreed,” Blake said.

“Now, here on Earth, we’ve had some developments that I’d like everyone to be aware of.  North Korea and South Korea have agreed on a timeline for demilitarization, and China and the U.S. have signed off on it.”

“That’s a relief,” Blake said.  “Having one hotspot cooled down should help.”

“Yes it will.  China has upgraded thirty of its coal-fired power plants to the new fusion reactor.  There has been a noticeable improvement in the air quality around Beijing and Shanghai.  We’ve informed them that they need to decommission their ballistic submarines before we’ll allow more.  India has also agreed to decommission its fleet, and will be receiving six fusion reactors next week.”

“I’m surprised they agreed,” Blake said.  “Aren’t they still worried about the U.S. and Russia?”

“It might have something to do with the private communication we sent to all the nuclear powers that should any one of them launch a nuclear missile, we will drop an asteroid on their capital thirty-six hours later,” Samantha said.

“I’m sure that got their attention,” Blake said.

“We have also removed any spy satellites from orbit regardless of which country it is from,” Marc said.

“Do we have the same coverage?” Blake asked.

“We’re over one thousand satellites now, Uncle Blake.”

“How did you manage that?” Blake asked.  “I thought we couldn’t make the reactors fast enough.”

“We couldn’t, but we figured out that we just needed to have one with a reactor close enough to beam energy to the others.  So when they don’t absorb enough solar energy, we just target them with a laser until they have enough power.  Solar is plenty of power for them unless they have to use their gravity drives or laser,” Catie said.

“Sounds smart.”

“And we’re sending you some of the satellites with the fusion reactors and quantum relays to use as surveillance probes against the Paraxeans.”

“Good,” Blake said.  “How are you managing all those satellites?”

“We’re building a separate DI to oversee them,” Marc said.  “We’ll allow queries from any government, and make medium resolution streams available to them via the internet.”

“So if you have things under control back home, we can focus on our problem out here,” Blake said.

“That would be nice; where are you now?” Marc asked.

“We’re about a week away from where we plan to wait for the Paraxeans,” Blake said.  “We are still targeting forty-five AU, right?”

“Yes, that’s still our best guess,” Marc said.

“Okay, do you guys have any better idea of what’s up with them?” Blake asked.

“No,” Marc said, pausing as he saw Catie raise her finger.  “Wait, Catie may have something.”

“I’ve had ADI searching all colonization references from Paraxea,” Catie said.

“And?”

“ADI, what did you find out?” Catie asked.

“I am still researching, but I have an eighty percent probability solution,” ADI said.

“Sounds good, what is it?”

“According to the records, the Paraxeans have colonized two worlds.  However, searching for any reference to colonization, there appears to have been a third colonization attempt.  It occurred between the first and second reported colonizations, but almost all records related to it have been erased,” ADI said.

“It occurred one hundred seventy years ago; they were supposed to colonize a world that was discovered orbiting the star Deranta Four.  Eighty years after they left Paraxea, all contact with them ceased.  A search mission was sent out but reported that they found nothing.  The reference I found was in Commander Centag’s file.  It was his first mission as an ensign in the Paraxean Space Force.”

“Now there is an unlikely coincidence,” Admiral Michaels said.

“I agree,” Marc said.  “Anything else on the mission?”

“It was before Paraxeans had gravity drives.  The reports I have found indicate that there were 1.2 million colonists on the ship, along with the necessary equipment to settle the world.  About forty years ago, the Paraxeans discovered that the Vacosi had colonized that world.  They refused to tell Paraxea when it was that they colonized it.”

“Okay, so fewer colonists than we thought, but more equipment,” Marc said.  “ADI, is there nothing indicating that the lost colonists were found?”

“No, Captain.”

“Okay, that might help us, we’ll have to see.  We’re going to send the Sakira out next week,” Marc said.  “It will hold station at Jupiter, and we’ll have the miners go with it with some tooling so we can make the Hyraxes out there closer to you guys.”

“Okay, why don’t you send more scotch while you’re at it?” Blake asked.

“I’m sure you took enough scotch with you,” Marc said.

“I did, but now I’m hosting the doctors and some nurses.”

“We don’t drink scotch,” Dr. Metra said.

“Yet,” Blake replied.  “The shooting hasn’t started.”

“Oh, and one last thing,” Marc said.  “I’m sending you a couple of reporters; they should be catching up to the Victory any day now.  It was the deal we made to cover up for the president’s little blunder.  One of them is our friend, Leslie.”

“Four cases!” Blake said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Daddy?”

“Yes.”

“Admiral Michaels has asked me to join his staff.”

“He told me,” Marc said.

“I’m going to go out with him on the Sakira.”

Marc grimaced; he had hoped Catie would stay at Delphi Station.  “Is that really necessary?”

“I think I need to be close.  We all know that whatever we finally learn that will defeat the Paraxeans, it will be built aboard the Sakira at Jupiter.”

“I can’t fault your logic.”

“At least I’ll be on the Sakira,” Catie said.  “I’d rather be with Uncle Blake on the Enterprise.”

“I know,” Marc said.  “I assume you’re ready to go?”

“Yes,” Catie said.  “Nattie wants to come with me.”

“I’m not surprised,” Marc said.  “I’m sure we can manage environmental without her for a few weeks.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“Now come here and give me a hug,” Marc said.

Marc fought the tears back as he hugged his daughter.  “Be sure to say goodbye to your mom.”

“I will, we’re stopping at Delphi City to pick up some more crew,” Catie said.

“Bye, Sweetie, stay safe.”

“Bye, Daddy, I love you.”

Catie marched out of Marc’s office, fighting to keep control of her emotions.  She’d never felt so afraid and so excited at the same time.  She just knew they were going to win, but she was terrified at the potential cost.

Samantha knocked on Marc’s door right after Catie left.  “She’s gone?”

“Yes.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’ll survive, but I won’t be alright until she comes back,” Marc said.  “Did you talk to her?”

“We talked for hours last night,” Samantha said.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but I promised.”

“That’s okay, she has to have people she can trust, I’m just happy you’re one of them.”

The goodbye between Catie and her mother was a lot more traumatic.  Linda and Catie both cried.  Linda screamed at Catie and about Marc, but eventually gave in and gave her daughter enough hugs and kisses to console them both.

◆ ◆ ◆

The next days were filled with endless simulations of space battles.  The pilots would board the various vessels in the flight bays and use the jet as their simulator.  They divided the pilots into two teams, Alfa and Bravo.  They would switch which team represented the allies or Paraxeans to encourage the pilots to anticipate the moves of their enemy.

They changed the balance, giving the Paraxeans an advantage in numbers.  With the new design, the Hyraxes had a 30% better survivability and slightly better maneuverability; those advantages were very apparent in the simulations.  They were able to consistently beat the Paraxean squadrons even when they were outnumbered two to one, but they still took heavy losses.  When the numbers were even, the losses were mostly confined to a few Hyraxes.  The problem was that the Paraxeans had a significant numerical advantage in LX4s, even if they were losing pilots in painfully high numbers.

Wing Commander Liz Farmer, Wing Commander Eli Frankham, and Catie spent as much free time as they could developing different fighter configurations and tactics.  The two wing commanders would take them back to their squadron leaders and refine them, as well as develop others; then they would put them into practice in the simulations.

The wing commanders had their pilots take their jets out and run mock combat to refine the tactic that showed the most promise in the simulations.  Catie was especially frustrated by the fact that she could not join in those since she was on the Sakira millions of miles from the Victory or Enterprise.  Jason and Kasper were with her, so she did manage to get flight time to hone her skills and get a better feel for the Hyrax.

Ten days after the Paraxean call, Sakira was approaching Jupiter, and it was time for the passengers headed to the Victory to leave.  Kasper and Jason would be flying them and the doctors to the Victory in a Lynx.  They needed to leave before the Sakira was too deep in Jupiter’s gravity; they didn’t want to lose any speed as they headed toward the Victory.

The Sakira entered Jupiter’s gravity well, cutting across it, so they just missed skimming its atmosphere.  It took them a day to reach a stop using Jupiter’s gravity and the Sakira’s drives to maintain a 2-G deceleration.  Instead of orbiting Jupiter, they maintained a constant relative position which provided the interior of the Sakira with 1-G of gravity.

It took them four days to catch the Victory and then another five days before the Victory reached the Enterprise.  Now that all their pieces were on the board, they just had to wait for the Paraxeans to arrive.

Chapter 26

Standoff

“Admiral Michaels, I assume we have all of our forces in place,” Marc said as he opened the briefing.

“All that we currently have are deployed.  And I must say that Captain McCormack has done an outstanding job shaking her out and completing the construction on the Enterprise,” Admiral Michaels said.  Blake just gave an acknowledging nod.

“How is Victory doing?” Marc asked.

“She is shaping up well,” Captain Clements said.  “We’re fully operational; just some comforts have yet to be completed.”

“Sakira and our miners?”

“We’re doing well,” Captain Clark said.  “Catie and Natalia have found the two asteroids we need, and they’re in solar orbit with Jupiter.  The miners have gotten us stocked up with material, and we will start building Hyraxes tomorrow.”

“Are you able to detect the Paraxean fleet yet?” Marc asked.

“Not yet.  They’re still a ways off, and we are not sure that they have moved away from the asteroid,” Admiral Michaels said.  “We’ve deployed our satellite probes to observe their area of space, so I think it is time to poke the bear.”

“If they’re still with the asteroid, how long would it take them to reach our forces after we poke them?” Marc asked.

“ADI?”

“It would take them four days to reach the Enterprise if they maximize their acceleration from the location of the asteroid, less time would be required if they have already started to accelerate away from it,” ADI said.

“Thank you, ADI, would you establish a communication link with Commodore Warlmag?”

“Yes, Captain.”

It took a few moments while ADI negotiated the link.  Eventually, Commodore Warlmag’s voice came across.  Whenever ADI did translations, she used the voice of the speaker to improve the nuance of the communication.

“Why are you calling me?” Commodore Warlmag demanded.  “I told you to stay silent!”

“Please don’t take your frustration out on the DI,” Marc said.  “She is acting under my orders.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m President Marc McCormack, the head of the alliance we have formed to stop your attempt to conquer Earth.  I am also the captain of the Sakira.”

“What alliance?  You have no capabilities to fight in space!”

“I have to apologize for the subterfuge.  We hid our capabilities in the report that I had the DI send you.  I can assure you we’re more than ready to meet your threat.”

“You don’t even know what threat we pose.”

“ADI, please transmit one of our pictures of the Paraxean forces,” Marc said.  “We are aware of your situation.  Although we can empathize with your position as the captain of the colonization ship that was destroyed or disabled, we cannot allow you to use Earth to solve your problem.  Your battleship and two carriers will be met with force and turned away from our solar system.”

“You speak with a lot of confidence for a world that wasn’t even able to reach your neighboring planet twenty years ago.”

“I assure you we have surpassed that milestone.  Our forces are waiting for you at the edge of our sun’s gravity well.  We’ve been tracking your asteroid for many months now.”

“I wish to make one thing perfectly clear,” Commodore Warlmag said.  “Whatever the reality of this imaginary force you are threatening us with, if you send any weapons against the asteroid and our colonists, I will send every FX4 I have at your planet armed with all of our missiles and with orders to obliterate as many of your cities as they can.”

“Rest assured, we have no intention to indiscriminately waste lives, either Paraxean or human.  That is one of the reasons for my call.  I would suggest you send your asteroid into a solar orbit where it is.  That should keep it out of range of any conflict.”

“We cannot do that until we are within your gravity well,” Commodore Warlmag said.

“I know you can do it.  You’re approaching at an oblique angle; you’re far enough into the gravity well to power the drives; only a small change in the asteroid’s approach vector will put it in orbit.  If you don’t do so, we’ll have to assume you’re planning to use it for some military advantage.”

“I am looking forward to meeting you and making you regret your words,” Commodore Warlmag said.

“The link has been cut off,” ADI said.

“Well, we poked him,” Marc said.

“He was grouchy; I don’t think hibernation agreed with him,” Catie said, breaking the tension in the group.

◆ ◆ ◆

After three days, it was obvious that the asteroid was being redirected into an orbit around the sun, approximately five AUs out from Uranus’s orbit.  The Paraxean fleet was just starting to register on the sensors of the satellite probes that Enterprise had deployed.  But it, too, had adjusted its approach vector to come into the solar system at a shallower angle.  After discussion, Marc and his cabinet agreed that the Paraxeans were making sure they preserved their options once they engaged with the Delphinean fleet.  They were forcing the Delphinean fleet to start an orbit parallel to them, which would provide a longer engagement time once the fleets closed with each other.

Chapter 27

First Engagement

The tension in the briefing room was palpable.  Everyone knew this was it; they were going out to meet the enemy.

Admiral Michaels prepared to address the pilots gathered in the ready rooms of each of the carriers.  The admiral was on the Sakira, which was still sitting outside of Jupiter.  He was addressing them via video link from the Sakira’s bridge.

“Alright, settle down,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Many of you are already familiar with the plans.  I want you to hold your questions until I finish the first part of the briefing.  That will let the others catch up.”

There were murmurs of acceptance, and the admiral gave them time to settle down again.

“Now, the plan is to meet them here,” Admiral Michaels said as he pointed to a map of the solar system, “outside the orbit of Neptune.  Our goal is to keep them outside of that orbit.  We know that they have two supercarriers and a battleship, and there are no other forces that would be able to engage us.  Estimates are that their supercarriers will have up to five hundred Foxes each.  The battleship will have up to fifty Foxes, but it has thirty-two defensive plasma cannons, eight down each quarter axis.  It also carries two railguns that are capable of launching a twenty-meter projectile at Earth.  I shouldn’t have to tell you the kinetic energy a twenty-meter ball of iron will carry with it.  It also has four massive plasma cannons that are each capable of obliterating a city.

“Part of our job in the first encounter is to learn.  You must know your enemy in order to defeat them.  We will be confronting them with two squadrons of Hyraxes.  As all of you should know, the Hyraxes are double-hulled and carry four plasma cannons.  Our tests show that they can pass through the beam from one of the big plasma cannons on that battleship and survive.  The secret is to move through its arc of fire without entering the arc of the next cannon.

“Our goal is to disable that battleship.  To do that, we need to learn enough about their defenses to develop a plan.”

“I’ll allow a few questions now,” Admiral Michaels said.

“Why only two squadrons of Hyraxes?”

“Our goal is to learn.  We want to see what they throw at them.  Do they try to match them one-for-one, or do they throw everything they have at them?” Admiral Michaels explained.

“What if they launch all their fighters?”

“Then our fighters will fly through their formation and try to wreak as much damage as possible before retreating back inside our lines,” Blake said.

“But we could be outnumbered twenty to one!”

“Have you read the specs on the Hyrax?” Blake asked.

“Yes, but it’s all on paper, sir.”

“We’ve live-tested those specs,” Blake announced.  “The Hyrax can survive a pass through the enemy squadron.  You just have to keep it moving and not give them a sustained shot.”

“But what about their missiles?”

“We have to learn; that means we have to take some chances,” Blake said.  “Your laser defenses should be able to take out their missiles before they get too close.  And of course, we have our own missiles.  You have to avoid allowing four enemy Foxes from being able to sustain a plasma beam on you at the same time in the same spot.  Don’t you think you could accomplish that?”

“Yes, sir!”

“We need to know exactly what they can throw at us,” Admiral Michaels said.

“We will be launching five Hyraxes in one hour.  They will do a recon pass by the enemy group.  Their delta-V will prevent the enemy from trying to chase them, and as we’ve said, they’re hardened against the plasma beams.  They should give us some close-up views of the enemy.”

“Why haven’t we done this earlier?”

“We didn’t want to give the enemy time to adapt to the Hyrax.  Even this is a risk, but five hours is deemed to be an acceptable window of time to show our hand,” Admiral Michaels said.

“What else does the enemy have?”

“They have whatever they’ve managed to store on that asteroid.  But the asteroid’s orbit will soon take them out of range of any possible support.  They’ve told us they have 1.4 million colonists and that they intend to conquer Earth and colonize it.”

“Not on our watch!” came the combined shout of the pilots at the briefing.

“What about the rest of us?”

“We are holding five squadrons in reserve behind the carriers.  The rest of the squadrons will maintain flight-ready status,” Admiral Michaels said.

“When do we get our extra plasma cannons?”

“We are making them as fast as we can.  We have a squadron of Oryxes with us that will scavenge the debris field.  We’ll recover any of our Hyraxes and as many of the enemy Foxes as we can.  We plan to use their plasma cannons to bring as many of our Hyraxes as possible up to four plasma cannons,” Blake explained.  “We won’t know what that will take until we have a sample in hand.”

The production of plasma cannons had become the bottleneck.  Only half their Hyraxes had four cannons; the rest just had two like the Foxes.  It wasn’t considered a significant disadvantage, but being able to target an enemy Fox with two cannons at the same time was a significant advantage.  The Hyraxes with only two cannons were going to be held in reserve, which was not sitting well with the pilots assigned to them.

◆ ◆ ◆

The five Hyraxes left the Enterprise and accelerated away at 2.5Gs.  They would be under constant acceleration or deceleration to deal with the immense distances between the two fleets.  To start, they vectored away from the Paraxean fleet.  Once they were sufficiently far enough counter-orbit from the Paraxeans, they turned and accelerated toward the Paraxean fleet.  They would cut across the fleet at only twenty thousand kilometers from the battleship, close enough that it would allow their sensor arrays to gather detailed sweeps of the three ships.  They were also vectored so that they were traveling away from the Paraxean asteroid to prevent any fears that they intended to do harm to the colonists in stasis on it.

The Paraxeans didn’t detect the Hyraxes until they were within one hundred thousand kilometers of them.  Once they did, they sent a barrage of missiles at them and a squadron of six Foxes.  But by then, the Hyraxes were traveling at over one hundred forty km per second.  Only a few of the missiles got within range of the Hyrax squadron and were easily dispatched by their defensive lasers.  The enemy Foxes immediately gave up the chase.

◆ ◆ ◆

“What did we learn?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Their missiles accelerated at five-G, their Foxes did two-G.  The missile yield was five-kilotons as we expected,” Blake reported.

“Their sensors did not pick up the Hyraxes until they were within one hundred thousand kilometers,” Catie said.  “That says they’ve not done anything to improve them.  Ours are much more sensitive; we would see the Hyraxes at two hundred thousand kilometers.”

“That is if they reacted when they saw them,” Blake said.  “They could be trying to hide their abilities.”

“You are correct,” Captain Clements said.  “I would have held back.”

“So would I,” Admiral Michaels said.  “But the Paraxeans have never had a war, so they are going to be both unpredictable and likely foolish in their engagements.  We need to be ready for anything and question everything.”

“We also know they have modified their approach even more; they’re almost in the same orbit as the asteroid,” Catie said.

“And we are matching their orbit,” Admiral Michaels said.  “It now looks like we’ll be in orbits that are about four AUs apart during the engagement.”

“That allows them to retreat without actually leaving the gravity well,” Blake said.  “If they were coming in at their previous angle, any retreat would have pushed them away from the sun, and they could have been trapped too far outside the gravity well.”

“I believe that change will be to our benefit.  Now we need to set up our first engagement for tomorrow,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Dismissed.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Two squadrons of Hyraxes were readied for the first engagement.  They would be supported by one squadron of Foxes with weapons officers aboard.  The three squadrons were all from the Enterprise.  The battle plan had been developed over weeks of simulations to maximize the effect of their railguns.  As the pilots prepared to board their jets, they met in groups; those who wanted to were met by a religious leader who prayed with them, others just went to receive the good wishes of their comrades and friends.

“Cers, board your jets,” Wing Commander Farmer said.  “Kasper, you have the lead squadron.  Jeffries, your squadron will come in second.  Owens, your Foxes will provide cover for their retreat and manage any missiles launched.”

The three squadron leaders nodded to acknowledge the orders.  They had reviewed them for hours the day before, but it was tradition to receive the final assignments right before launch.

“Good luck and may the Force be with you,” Liz said, quoting the Star Wars send-off.

“Oorah!” all the pilots shouted as they boarded their jets.

◆ ◆ ◆

“The Paraxeans should be picking us up on their sensors now,” Kasper said.

“They’ve just launched four squadrons of Foxes from one of the carriers,” Captain Clark said.  “They appear to be holding two other squadrons around the carriers and battleship.”

“They should intersect your course in thirty minutes,” ADI said.

“Take attack formation Beta-4,” Liz ordered.

The two squadrons of Hyraxes spread out to make four arrows, each pointed at the battleship from a slightly different angle but with enough distance between them that it would force the Paraxeans to separate their four squadrons.

“You're clear to launch missiles,” Liz said.

Each Hyrax launched two missiles.  The missiles’ design, like the Hyrax, had been hardened to withstand a single plasma burst from one of the Foxes.  It would take sustained contact from the plasma cannon and lasers to destroy one of them.

The Paraxean Foxes launched two salvos of two missiles each.  As the first salvo approached the Delphinean missiles, the missiles started to corkscrew in an evasive pattern.  They had added more thrusters to the missiles, so they were more maneuverable.  When the first Paraxean salvo detonated, it only destroyed one-fifth of the Delphinean missiles.

“Yes!” Catie exclaimed, pumping her fist as the data was relayed to the command center of the Sakira.

“A very good showing,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Now, let’s see what they do with their second salvo.”

The second salvo of Paraxean missiles ignored the Delphinean missiles and headed straight for the Hyrax squadrons.

“Pilots, disperse and prepare to take out those missiles,” Kasper ordered.

The Hyraxes spread out further and started corkscrewing as well.  As they started targeting the Paraxean missiles, the Delphinean missiles reached the Paraxean Foxes.  The Hyrax pilots were using their lasers to take out the Paraxean missiles at the greatest range possible.  With the Paraxean missiles maintaining a simple approach vector, they were quickly dispensed with.  Only two Hyraxes were damaged, the pilots dropped all their missiles and ejected the cockpits before the Hyraxes were hit by the missiles.  By dropping them, the missiles could be remotely fired by a weapons officer on one of the Foxes.

It was not the same for the Paraxean Foxes.  The Delphinean missiles were hard to target with their complex maneuvers, and with the additional hardening, the Paraxeans were only able to destroy half of the 38 remaining missiles.  The other 16 missiles struck the Foxes, taking out 10.

The Hyraxes launched a salvo of 44 missiles at the Paraxeans.  One of the weapons officers aboard a Delphinean Fox took control of the 36 missiles that had been dropped by the two destroyed Hyraxes and moved them up into a formation.  He informed Kasper that they were available for targeting.

“They've launched two salvos of one hundred seventy-two missiles each,” ADI reported.  “They are in a tight formation.”

“Execute Gamma-4,” Liz ordered.

The Hyrax pilots engaged thrusters and flipped their jets over, reversing their acceleration, so they were slowing their approach to the Paraxean Foxes.  After two minutes, they flipped over again and started accelerating toward the Paraxeans again.  The weapons officer aboard the Delphinean Fox guided the thirty-six missiles using thrusters only.  They had been traveling at high velocity toward the Paraxean fleet, so it was a simple matter to only use thrusters to guide them into the new positions that Liz had ordered.

The Paraxean missiles quickly approached the Delphinean Hyraxes, but as the first salvo passed the silent missiles, eighteen of them detonated in the middle of the tight formation, destroying over half of the missiles.  It took the Paraxeans too long to finally spread out their second salvo, so when it crossed the Delphinean silent missiles, the detonation of those missiles took out one-third of the Paraxean salvo.

“Okay, we have eighty-six missiles followed by one-hundred,” Kasper said.  “Owens, send a couple of Foxes through there and drop some laser mines.”

“On their way,” Lieutenant Owens said.

The laser mines were another Delphinean innovation, simply one of the satellites modified so it now sported four powerful lasers.  The two Foxes cut across the path of the approaching missiles accelerating at 3Gs and dropped the mines.  They then launched all sixteen missiles each at the Paraxean Foxes before they flipped their jets and angled away from the Paraxeans and in the general direction of the Delphinean fleet.

The thirty-six missiles they launched quickly crossed over the Paraxean missiles.  The Paraxean Foxes launched a salvo of 172 missiles at them, then they flipped over and started accelerating away from the Delphi squadrons.

“They’re out of missiles!” Catie said.

“Let’s be calm, Lieutenant,” Captain Clark said.

“Do we pursue?” Kasper asked.

“Why don’t we focus on all those missiles first,” Admiral Michaels said.

As the first salvo of missiles came into range of the mines, the lasers started targeting them.  The missiles made only minor changes in course as one after another was destroyed.  The second salvo suffered the same fate, and the third salvo was just as easily decimated.

“Nobody was working the missiles,” Liz said.

“That would appear to be the case,” Blake said.  “Once they turned and ran, they no longer tried to manage the missiles.  Why would they do that?”

“Range!” Catie said as she glanced at Captain Clark to see if he was going to tell her to calm down again.

“What do you mean?”

“They would have been out of effective communication range soon, they probably could have done something with the first salvo, but I bet the mines surprised them.  They didn’t have time to figure out what to do before they were out of range to control their second salvo effectively.”

“I guess when you’re fighting at thirty thousand KPH, the speed of light matters,” Blake said.

“Yes, a few milliseconds between command and reaction is tough when a drone is right next to your missile and targeting it with a laser,” Catie said.

“Do we pursue?” Kasper asked again.

“No,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Let’s regroup and reestablish our defensive position.  I want them to have time to think.”

“Why do we want to give them time to think?” Blake asked.

“Because when we see how they respond after they’ve had a day to think, we’ll be better able to predict how they’ll respond when we don’t give them any time.  Besides, we should let their morale deteriorate as much as possible after getting their asses handed to them.”

“Yes, sir,” Kasper said, his exasperation at being called back clear in his voice.

◆ ◆ ◆

“What’s the status of our two casualties?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Both pilots were picked up.  They got banged around pretty bad, but no major injuries.  The doctor has prescribed two days’ rest.”

“Excellent news,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Okay, what did we learn?”

“They seemed to want to rely on their missiles,” Liz said.

“That’s a sign of intelligence,” Captain Clark said.  “Stand-off weapons are a lot safer than getting into a dogfight.”

“I agree,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Let’s not read too much into that.  Our pilots have been training hard at head-to-head fighting and tactics since they were already familiar with stand-off fighting techniques.  We prefer the missiles and mines to head-to-head.”

“Well, at least those of us with a few years of maturity do,” Blake said.

“What do we think they learned?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“That their Foxes are outclassed, and so are their missiles,” Catie said.

“That’s probably correct, so how will they respond to that?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“With numbers,” Blake said.  “That’s what they did in the encounter; they just threw more missiles at us.”

“But again, they didn’t have time to think,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Tomorrow, I want to put our railguns on that battleship; what tactics should we use?”

“I think we should seed the area with more laser probes and coasting missiles,” Catie said.

“Why?”

“I don’t think their sensors can detect them until they go active,” Catie said.  “And they don’t seem to react well when something surprises them.  So we should prepare more surprises.”

“I like the way you think,” Captain Clements said.  “I vote with the young lieutenant.”

“How’s our missile stores and missile production?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“There are sixteen missiles mounted on each of our two thousand jets, there are fifty thousand missiles in reserve, and the production capacity at Jupiter is two thousand missiles per day,” ADI said.

“With a two-day delivery,” Captain Clark said.

“No, we can get the missiles there in ten hours,” Catie said.  “We’ve modified two Oryxes so they can do ten-Gs, ADI will fly them.”

“That’s much better,” Blake said.  “So how many missiles are you sending to us now?”

“We have two Oryxes with five thousand missiles heading your way now, our stockpile here is twenty thousand,” Catie said.

“That’s good news,” Blake said.

“I’m glad you like it,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Tomorrow we’ll follow Catie’s suggestion and set up maneuver Odin-1.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Make sure our pilots get a good night’s rest, until tomorrow,” Admiral Michaels said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Marc, are you comfortable with the way things are going so far?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“I’m relying on you and Blake to handle things,” Marc said.  “I’m trying to keep myself quiet during the briefings.”

“You’re doing an admirable job of it,” Blake said.  “I was wondering if you were even there.”

“Any advice?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Expect them to surprise you,” Marc said.

“I always do,” the admiral said.  “Until tomorrow.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, Sweetie, a good first battle, wouldn’t you say?”

“I think so.  But everyone is just feeling each other out.  I don't think tomorrow will be as good.”

“Probably not,” Marc said.  “How are you holding up?”

“I’m good.  Nattie’s here for company, and everyone is super busy, so that helps.”

“Try to sound a little more cheerful when you talk to your mother.”

“I’ll try.”

“You’d better get some rest.”

“I’ll go to bed right after I talk with Mommy.”

“Bye, Sweetie.”

“Bye, Daddy.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day, the Enterprise and Victory launched six squadrons of Hyraxes and two squadrons of Foxes.  One-hundred-ninety-two fighters formed up and accelerated toward the Paraxean fleet.

The night before, they had seeded two thousand missiles inside the area they expected the Paraxeans to cross as well as an additional twelve laser mines.  They had also sent two squadrons of Hyraxes on a vector to bring them above the expected plane of engagement.  They were currently coasting along in silent mode.

The Paraxean fleet was still on the same heading; it had five squadrons of Foxes out providing cover for the fleet.  As the Delphinean force entered the Paraxean sensor range, one of the carriers disgorged six hundred Foxes.

“Oh my god, they really decided to use numbers,” Liz said.  “Do we know how they launched all of those fighters so quickly?”

“All of the fighters came out of one flight bay,” ADI said.  “They used a similar maneuver to the one Catie and I worked out for the Sakira.  They essentially released the magnetic hold of the Foxes, adjusted their wheels, then did a maximum acceleration of the carrier.  The Foxes’ inertia just rolled them out.”

“How did they achieve enough acceleration to do that?” Blake asked.

“Captain Blake, our satellites detected that they dumped an enormous amount of mass to create that acceleration,” ADI said.

“So they were putting on a show,” Blake said.

“It would seem so.”

“If they launched that many from one flight bay, that suggests they could be carrying up to five thousand fighters between the two carriers,” Blake said.

“It is possible,” ADI said, “but our sensors showed the two carriers behind the battleship for over twelve hours.  One could surmise that they used that cover to move fighters into the single flight bay to maximize the theatrical effect of launching them.”

“Let’s hope you’re right,” Blake said.  “Admiral, any change in plans?”

“I see that they’ve turned that battleship so that it’s presenting its big cannons toward our fighters.”

“Correct, and their fighters are clustered inside the firing range of those cannons,” Blake said.

“Then let’s see if we can bring them out,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Execute as planned.”

“Yes, sir!”

The Hyraxes continued to accelerate toward the Paraxean fleet, fanning as they prepared to engage.

“Execute, Omega-6,” Liz ordered.

The forty-eight Foxes accelerated at 3-Gs behind the Hyrax screen.  Just before they passed the Hyraxes, they released four salvos of missiles, ten seconds apart.  They flipped their jets and did a max acceleration to check their velocity, and slowly the Hyraxes gained on them and eventually passed them.  But four waves of 96 missiles were silently coasting toward the Paraxean position.

The Paraxean Foxes continued to maintain their position inside the range of the battleship’s cannons.  They were in a tight cluster waiting for the Delphinean fighters to launch missiles.

“Well, they’re not following our plan,” Blake said.

“I can see that,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Any recommendations?”

“Hey, they're nice and tight, let’s see what they think of our railguns,” Blake said.

“Yes!” Catie hissed and pumped her fist.

“Agreed,” Admiral Michaels said.

Blake nodded to Liz.

“Execute Odin-3,” Liz ordered.

“Odin-3, aye,” Kasper replied.

The 144 Hyraxes started to corkscrew as they continued to approach the battleship and the waiting Paraxean Foxes.  When they were within ten-thousand meters, each Hyrax fired off five rounds from their railguns, then one minute later, they launched two salvos of missiles before veering off and circling back toward the Delphinean carriers.

The railguns’ slugs were traveling at over 50 km per second as they streamed toward the Paraxean battleship, each of them on a different vector.  The Paraxean Foxes waited quietly for the slugs to enter laser-range.  Once the slugs were within range, the area was lit up by the laser light being dispersed off the polished slugs.  The reflected light blinded the Paraxean sensors.  They continued to fire at the slugs that they had a targeted solution for, knowing the slugs couldn’t change direction, but they were confused as to why the slugs were not breaking up.  The melted slugs tore through the Paraxean Foxes.  Only ten percent of them made contact, but with 720 slugs, 72 Paraxean Foxes were annihilated, and their wreckage damaged or destroyed another two hundred Foxes.  The slugs continued their course and impacted the battleship, which could not try to target them without hitting one of their own Foxes.

Then the Hyraxes that were launched the night before lit up their engines.  They raced in on an attack vector and started firing their railguns.  This was the original plan.  The first squadrons of Hyraxes were supposed to engage the enemy fighters, and when the battlefield was chaotic enough, these Hyraxes were to go active.

Another 120 iron slugs were streaking toward the battleship.  The Paraxean Foxes moved to set up a screen, using their lasers to try to destroy the slugs, but they again had little effect.  The slugs slammed into the battleship, tearing holes into it.  The Paraxeans launched another four hundred Foxes from the two carriers while at the same time, the battleship reversed its acceleration and started to retreat.

“Do we go after them?” Blake asked.

“No, they’ll spread their Foxes out so the railguns won’t be effective, and we’re outnumbered, and who knows how many more Foxes they’ll launch.  Bring our pilots home, and we’ll do some planning for tomorrow.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“ADI, call our friend, Commodore Warlmag,” Marc said.

“You really want to poke that bear again?” Blake asked.

“I definitely think we should poke him,” Admiral Michaels said.  “I assume you’re going to ask for his surrender.”

“Brilliant minds think alike,” Marc said.

“Well, if you’re planning on providing the entertainment, I’m having a glass of wine,” Samantha said.

“You’ve spent too much time hanging around Blake,” Marc said.

“And you are cruel,” Blake said.  “All of us are on duty, so no scotch.”

“I think we can make an exception,” Admiral Michaels said.

“Remind me to add you to my Christmas list,” Blake said.  He quickly grabbed a bottle and glasses from the cabinet and offered drinks to his team.

“Like the lady, I would prefer wine,” Commander Desjardins said.

Blake frowned at his XO, but nodded to his steward who brought out a bottle of Pinot Noir from the wine fridge in the captain’s dining room.  Liz was happy to accept the glass of scotch.

“Mates, it’s a good thing you sent over a case of scotch earlier,” Commander Frankham, the wing commander of the Victory, said.

“I like to stay on good terms with my compatriots,” Blake said.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Captain Clements said.

“If you want to be on good terms, you should send over a case of good Irish Whiskey,” Commander Fitzgerald, the XO of the Victory, said.

“Oops,” Blake said.

“I’ll order a case,” Catie said.  “I have some connections with a few of the Oryx pilots.”

“Well, do you think you’ve kept him waiting long enough?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“I think so,” Marc said.  “Commodore Warlmag, how are you doing today?”

“I am going to feed you one of those railguns,” Commodore Warlmag growled.

“It seems you continue to overestimate your hand,” Marc said.  “It is we who are feeding you from our railguns.”

“It is not me that is overestimating his hand,” Commodore Warlmag said.

“It is not me that is traveling in the opposite direction from this morning,” Marc said.  “I wanted to give you the opportunity to surrender before any more Paraxean lives are wasted.”

“You know what you can do with that request,” Commodore Warlmag said.  “We’ll be back soon, and then the battle will really start!”

“Captain, he has disconnected,” ADI said.

“Thank you,” Marc said.  “What does that tell us?”

“He still thinks he can beat us,” Catie said.

“Yes, but why?” Admiral Michaels said.

“He must not think he’s put his best foot forward,” Blake said.

“What’s he going to change?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“I suspect he might have decided he should listen to the professionals,” Captain Clements said.  “These last two engagements have all the earmarks of being led by a political appointee instead of a military strategist.”

“I think you’re probably right,” Admiral Michaels said.  “It reminds me of how another commander I know would run a battle.”

“I think I know who you’re referring to, and I have to agree,” Captain Clements said.  “He keeps playing threes and acting like they’re aces.”

“Time to regroup and replan,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Or possibly go back to the plan where we thought we were fighting professionals.”

Chapter 28

The Battle Begins

It was two days before the Paraxeans turned around and headed toward Earth again.  The carriers launched six hundred fighters again, this time in a more steady, rhythmic manner.  The fighters formed up into four wings and headed toward the Delphinean fleet.

Admiral Michaels immediately ordered the launch of twenty squadrons of Hyraxes and five squadrons of Foxes to meet the threat.  The Hyraxes formed up into four wings to match the Paraxeans; the Foxes spread out behind each wing to provide cover and weapons guidance for any missiles launched by the Hyraxes.  While the Paraxeans were gone, Blake had sent several Foxes out to gather up the missiles they’d left in silent running mode.  They had been relaunched as soon as the Paraxean fleet had been detected and were well ahead of the four wings of Delphinean fighters.

“Is Odin ready?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Yes, sir,” Liz said.  “We launched them as soon as we saw the fleet, they’re in position now.”

“Good, now let’s see how long it takes before this battle plan falls apart,” the admiral said.

“The Paraxeans have launched their first salvo of missiles,” ADI said.  “Only half of the Foxes launched missiles.  They have just launched a second salvo.”

“Definitely seems like he’s leaving it to the professionals,” Admiral Michaels said.

“Unfortunately,” Blake said.

“Missiles are approaching our mines,” Liz reported.

“Engage when ready,” Admiral Michaels said.

The mines activated their lasers and started taking out the Paraxean missiles.  In seconds they had reduced the number of missiles from 600 to less than half, but then the missiles started to detonate next to the mines.  The weapons officers in the Foxes took control of the mines and started to maneuver them to take out any missiles that approached them.  As the second Paraxean missile salvo crossed the minefield, their effectiveness was drastically reduced as more were destroyed, and the rest had to spend as much time trying to avoid being destroyed as they did guiding the missiles.  Over 400 made it through.

“They have Foxes on the edge of the battlefield guiding their missiles,” Catie said.

“I see that,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Thank you, Lieutenant.  Commander Farmer, would you direct some Foxes and missiles to take care of the spectators?”

“Already on their way,” Liz said.  “Wing commanders, launch counterstrike missiles.”

During the two days, they had modified two hundred missiles and equipped them with lasers.  These missiles now were streaking toward the Paraxean missiles.  Once they reached them, they started firing lasers at the missiles, disabling them as they flew by.  They managed to eliminate 50% of the missiles in both salvos before they had to sheer off and try to return to the Delphinean lines.

“Launch your strike missiles,” Liz ordered.

Each Hyrax launched two salvos of two missiles each at the approaching Foxes.  The missiles accelerated at 5Gs and quickly closed the distance.  About the time the first Paraxean salvo arrived at the Delphinean Hyrax wings, their salvo was entering the Paraxean fighter wings.

The Delphinean fighters were desperately targeting the Paraxean missiles, but now the missiles were changing directions and spiraling toward their targets.  Even with the Hyraxes’ countermoves and greater armor, over one hundred were lost.

The Paraxeans fared much worse.  When the Delphinean missile salvo reached them, they had a devastating accuracy.  Even with only a 20% success rate, the 400 missiles in the first salvos took out over 90 of the Paraxean Foxes.

During the second salvo, the Odin Hyraxes struck.  They were well above the battlefield, and had been running in silent mode toward the Paraxean battleship.  Now they kicked on their engines and accelerated toward the battleship, using their thrusters to start a spiraling dance to hide which vector they were on when they fired their railguns.  They were moving at over one hundred kilometers per second when they first fired their railguns.  They fired eight rounds before sheering and accelerating away from the Paraxean fleet.  The Paraxean Foxes flying guard for the battleship weren’t able to make up the delta speed to the Hyraxes and didn’t even bother to try to give chase.

By the time the second salvo had taken out another 70 Paraxean Foxes, the slugs were tearing through the battleship.  The Foxes tried to intercept them and at least get a laser or plasma shot off to soften them up before they hit the battleship.  Another twenty Foxes were destroyed as they tried to maneuver through the hail of slugs.  The sensors showed over one hundred holes ripped into the battleship’s hull.

The main battle between the Paraxean Foxes and the Delphinean fighters continued.  The Delphinean wing was taking the offensive now; they launched a third and fourth salvo of missiles at the Paraxeans, who also were still on the offensive.  Unfortunately for them, they now were crossing the Delphinean missiles that had been coasting all morning.  The missiles fired up their engines, and the one thousand missiles had a devastating effect, taking out over two hundred fifty of the Paraxean Foxes.  In the face of this devastation, the Paraxeans turned around and tried to outrun the two missile salvos from the Hyraxes that had been fired at them.  As the missiles caught up with the Paraxeans, they took out another one hundred fighters, leaving only eighty Paraxean Foxes to return to their fleet.  The Hyraxes fired off their rail guns, unleashing hundreds of rounds, but forewarned, the Paraxean battleship was maneuvering so that their targeting solution was minimal.

The Paraxean fleet had already turned after the storm of slugs hit the battleship, and was now heading away from Earth.  The Delphinean wings broke apart, with half of them returning to the carriers.  The other half stayed to scour the battlefield looking for survivors, and to provide cover for the Oryxes that had entered the battlefield to collect the cockpit pods.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Report!” Admiral Michaels said.

“We lost one-hundred-thirty Hyraxes,” Blake said.

“Pilots?”

“We don’t know yet; we’re still collecting the pods.”

“What have you confirmed?” the admiral asked, forcing everyone to face the reality of what war meant.

“We have twenty pilots confirmed dead,” Blake said.  “We have another thirty with serious injuries, and twenty with minor injuries.  We have sixty pods yet to collect.”

“We’ve also brought in fifty Paraxean pods with survivors,” Captain Clements said.

“Why . . .”  Catie cut herself off before she finished her question.

“We do not lose our humanity just because we are at war,” Captain Clark whispered to Catie.

Catie nodded her head.

“Captain Clark, we just recovered Jason’s pod.  Except for a few bruises, he’s fine,” Blake said.  “I’m sure you’ve been anxious.”

“Thank god,” Captain Clark said.

Catie gave a sigh of relief; she’d been waiting on word of that pod, too.

Chapter 29

Secret Weapon

“We need a better battle plan,” Marc said.  “I’m not sure we can sustain this.”

“We seem to be able to make them retreat, but we cannot seem to take that battleship out,” Admiral Michaels said.

“Its hull thickness is minimizing the impact of our slugs, especially the ones that are liquified before they strike,” Captain Clark said.

“Why do they keep bringing it out?” Catie asked.

“It gives them a safe place for their Foxes to retreat to.  Even with the Hyrax’s superior energy absorbing capacity, we would never send one inside the firing range of that thing’s plasma cannons,” Admiral Michaels said.

“We could allocate more fighters to Odin,” Liz suggested.

“We could, but the more fighters we send out that way, the more likely they are to be detected.  They have to be close before they fire; otherwise, the battleship can accelerate out of the way,” Commander Frankham said.

“But they have to use an enormous amount of reaction mass to accomplish that, they’ve got to run out sometime,” Catie said.

“You’re right, but we lost thirty-five pilots in that engagement, and we’ll lose more in the next.  The Paraxeans are learning.  I don’t think they can catch up with us, but we need a better plan, one that doesn’t cost so many lives,” Blake said.

“I have an idea,” Catie said, “but it’s kind of scary.”  Catie had been up all night agonizing over the loss of so many pilots.  She couldn’t stop trying to think of a way around it; the only one she could imagine was frightening.

“Scarier than what we been through?” Blake asked

“For the pilots, it will be,” Catie said.

“Would you do it?” Blake asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Catie said.  “No, I definitely would.”

“Okay, show us,” Marc said.

Catie threw her plan up on the table display so everyone could see it.

“What is that thing?” Blake asked.

“Odin’s Fist,” Catie said.  “It has a battleship-sized plasma cannon and eight lasers.”

“How big is it?” Jason asked.

“It’s a three-meter sphere.”

“That’s pretty small for all that firepower,” Blake said.

“That’s the secret,” Catie said.  “It has a small cross-section, so there’s not much area for them to target energy at.  Those plasma cannons on it can get rid of any energy they do hit it with.  It will be able to sit right inside a battleship’s plasma cannon and use its lasers to take them out.  Or it can use its plasma cannons to cut into the battleship’s hull.”

“What’s the hull construction?” Blake asked.

“Four layers of polysteel and polyglass,” Catie said.

“If it’s polyglass and polysteel, you have to print the hull,” Liz said.

“We can form the main section of the hull like we built the carriers, but you’ll need to print the two ends to close it,” Catie said.

“What about the access door?” Blake said.  “That has to be a weak spot.  A sustained plasma beam there, and I don’t think even a four-layer hull will be able to take it.”

“That’s the scary part,” Catie said.  “You have to seal the pilot in.”

“What?!”

“You have to use a printer and seal the pilot in,” Catie said.  “Then, there isn’t a discontinuity in the superconductor meshes, so it can take a sustained plasma beam.”

“I don’t like that idea,” Marc said.

“What’s the difference?” Liz asked.  “You go out in a Fox or Hyrax, and you have to wait until you come back inside a carrier to get out.  This just takes more time to get out of.”

“Okay, so say we buy this idea, how does that change the game?” Admiral Michaels asked.  “They can still rotate the battleship to keep it from getting a good target lock.”

“That won’t matter,” Catie said.  “It has a magnetic coupler that allows it to attach itself to the hull, then a small gravity drive to maneuver with.”

“So it could eventually take out all their plasma cannons and lasers?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“How do you fit a reactor inside that thing?” Marc asked.

“You don’t,” Catie said.

“What?!  Then where does it get its energy from?” Blake asked.

“It has capacitors, but it needs someone to be firing on it to keep it charged, preferably the plasma cannon from the battleship.”

“What happens if they figure that out?” Liz asked.

“Then we’d have to have our Hyraxes fire on it,” Catie said.

“That is insane!” Marc said.

“It’s the only thing ADI and I could come up with that works,” Catie said.

“I assume you’ve run simulations?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Of course.”

“I’ve made most of the parts,” Catie said.  “We have plenty of polysteel and polyglass capacity.  It’s the capacitors and plasma cannons that will take the longest.”

“We’d have to redirect all our production and printer capacity to this for at least a week to make six of them,” Fred said as he continued to study the plans Catie had shared with everyone.

“We’ll also need to move one of the big printers to one of the carriers to seal the pilots in,” Catie said.  “Also, we need to modify a few Hyraxes so they can deploy them, and the Hyrax will be a loss.”

“Why?”

“In order to get it close to the carrier, we need the Hyrax to fly inside the range of its plasma cannons.  They’ll destroy the Hyrax, but then the Fist will be launched as if it’s the cockpit pod.  That should allow it to get close enough to the battleship to lock on.”

“If you’re in contact with the battleship, how do you get it to fire one of its cannons at you?” Liz asked.

“You don’t actually contact the hull, the magnetic lock works at twenty meters, just inside the firing arc.  I assume we would have it bounce out and in to make it look like the plasma cannon was having an effect,” Catie said.

“Girl, you have to be crazy to come up with this,” Liz said, “but I agree, it sounds like it would work.”

“Why use a pilot?” Blake asked.

“EMP, we can harden the manual controls, the gravity drive, and cannons, but an AI would be unlikely to survive,” Catie said.  “Any comm link would be taken out as well.”

“I don’t like it,” Blake said.

“Thirty-five pilots,” Catie said, her eyes were moist with tears.

“But they had a chance, the pilot in this thing is going to feel like a sitting duck,” Blake said.

“We have to try.”

“I agree.  Any tactical reason not to try it?” Admiral Michaels asked.  “I didn’t think so,” he said after nobody responded.

“We’ll need to test one before we deploy,” Catie said.  “I want to be the test pilot.”

“Why?” Marc demanded.

“I understand it; I’ll be able to see if we missed anything,” Catie said.

“Alright, Cers, we have a week to build the Fists, then a few days for tests and modifications,” Admiral Michaels said.  “We have our mission parameters; we hold them off for two weeks.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It was three days before the Paraxeans came back.  With the mission parameters changed, Admiral Michaels and his staff had decided to try a different maneuver to see if it would buy them more time.  As soon as their sensors picked up the Paraxean battleship, they had launched six Odin squadrons, each on a different vector.  As the Paraxeans approached, they launched twenty Hyrax squadrons, which formed up into two wings, each backed by a squadron of Foxes.  They immediately accelerated toward the Paraxean fleet.  The Paraxeans launched a counterforce of six hundred Foxes.

“They sure like that number,” Blake said as he and Liz were watching the battlefield develop.

“I know, I wonder if it has special significance?” Liz said.

“Who knows,” Blake said.  “Here they go.”

The Delphinean wings launched their missile salvos early, then immediately retreated back toward the Enterprise.  The move surprised the Paraxeans, and they started separating, preparing to deal with the incoming missiles.

Then the Odin squadrons struck.  Instead of targeting the battleship, they targeted the carriers, firing over eight-hundred-fifty slugs at each of the carriers.  The Paraxeans had placed their Fox shield forward of the battleship and had only held a few back to defend the carriers.  By the time they detected the hailstorm of slugs, they had to scramble to get the carriers out of the way and to bring fighters back to them to try to diminish the slugs.

It was too late by the time they realized that hitting the slugs with a laser actually made them more effective against the carriers.  Unmelted, the slugs ripped a small hole through the carrier, barely spreading out as it ripped through the polysteel hull and decks, but if it was melted, it spread out on impact and tore a much bigger hole in the hull and the first few decks before its energy was dissipated.

The Paraxean fleet immediately recalled all its fighters and turned away.

“They keep managing to redefine stupid,” Blake said.

“They don’t make the same mistake twice,” Admiral Michaels said, “but they sure do let its cousins show up.”

“How much time do you think that will buy us?” Liz asked.

“Two or three days, I hope,” Blake said.  “We’ll have to see.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It was only two days before the Paraxeans returned.  This time they had six hundred fighters leading the fleet and one hundred around each of their ships.  The Delphinean war council had anticipated this and had liberally spread mines and silent running missiles along the way.  This time, they had placed them much deeper into the Paraxean sphere than they had before.  They would have needed to collect the missiles and relaunch if the Paraxeans had delayed for another day.

“Do you see their outliers?” Blake asked.

“We have them,” Liz said.  “It looks like they’re setting up where we anticipated.  Another twenty minutes and we’ll know for sure.”

“Launch fighters!” Blake ordered.

The two carriers disgorged two hundred Hyraxes each, followed by two squadrons of Foxes from each carrier.  Their screen of Hyraxes quickly adjusted their flight paths to maximize their coverage of the carriers while making room for the two space wings to vector toward the Paraxean force.

“How do you think they’re replacing all their fighters?” Captain Clements asked.

“I don’t think they are,” Catie replied from the bridge of the Sakira.

“What makes you say that?” Blake asked.

“With their process, it would take them five days to print a Fox, so they would need over two hundred printers to keep up with the losses.  I think they used the time between our first call to stock up as much as they could, so they’ve been able to maintain their force composition.  But they’re going to have to start losing fewer planes or taking longer to regroup.”

“This was a pretty short cycle for them to return,” Admiral Michaels said.

“But they didn’t lose that many fighters last time.”

“Granted.  Well, let’s see if we can correct that,” Liz said.  “They just crossed into the minefield.  Activate mines and fire up our first set of sleepers.”

The mines started targeting the Foxes, taking out twenty in the first five seconds.  The missiles fired up their engines and accelerated toward the Paraxeans.  Caught unawares, the Paraxeans vectored their fighters away from the killing zone and launched missiles to target the Delphinean missiles that suddenly appeared on their screens.  With their spotter Foxes, the Paraxeans were effective at taking out the missiles and the mines, but were suffering heavy losses due to their late awareness.

“Fire up our picket missiles,” Liz ordered.

The missiles they had positioned targeting the locations they expected the Paraxeans to place their spotters, fired up and rocketed toward the small cluster of Foxes.  With the spotters having to focus on the incoming missiles, the sleeper missiles and two salvos launched from the approaching wing of Delphinean fighters were able to create maximum damage within the Paraxean fighter wings; they lost 30% of their fighters before they cleared the killing zone.  They were now faced with the next launch of missiles from the Delphinean wings, but with the dispersion they’d made coming out of the kill zone, the Delphinean missiles were less effective.  After the fourth salvo passed, there were still over three hundred fighters to face.

The Paraxeans launched their second and third salvos of missiles and continued to accelerate toward the Delphinean wings.

“Launch counterstrike missiles,” Liz ordered.

The laser-armed missiles rocketed toward the Paraxean missiles, crossing into the swarm within seconds.  The lasers immediately started destroying the Paraxean missiles.  To everyone’s surprise, several Paraxean missiles detonated, sending thousands of small pieces of shrapnel at the counterstrike missiles, destroying many of them.  They used the same tactic as they entered the swarm of missiles from the Delphinean wing.

“They’re learning,” Admiral Michaels said.  “What’s in those warheads?”

“The sensors say that it was the same material as our railgun slugs,” ADI said.

“Oh, that is innovative of them,” Blake said.

Only one-third of the Delphinean missiles made it through the Paraxean missile storm.  They took out seventy of the Paraxean Foxes.  The surviving Foxes launched two more salvos of missiles at the Delphinean wings, which were now dealing with the second and third salvos launched earlier.

As the remaining missiles from those salvos tore through the Delphinean wings, most were destroyed by the Hyraxes’ lasers.  The fact that they had managed to destroy or distract the Paraxean spotters spared the Hyraxes, and they only lost forty fighters in those salvos.

The Hyraxes changed vectors to rise above the incoming fourth and fifth salvos, forcing the missiles to adjust their vectors.  They had minimal success since they’d spent most of their fuel; what they wasted by changing vectors meant they had little to nothing left for the final acceleration to their target.  The Hyraxes cleared the salvos, losing only an additional twenty fighters.  The fact that the Hyrax pilots were so skilled at maneuvering their fighters around the incoming missiles was something the Paraxeans couldn’t match when they faced the Delphinean missile barrage.  Now the Hyraxes accelerated toward the Paraxean Foxes that were down to their last three missiles.  The Delphinean Hyraxes launched two more salvos at them and maxed out their acceleration to close the distance.

The Paraxeans launched their last missiles before they turned and raced toward the battleship and the safety of its plasma cannons.  The Hyraxes had to maneuver around and through the swarm of Paraxean missiles, and by the time they had dealt with them, they had lost another twenty fighters, and the Paraxeans were too far ahead to pursue.

The Delphinean wing had lost eighty fighters, but had disabled or destroyed over four hundred of the Paraxean Foxes.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Status report,” Admiral Michaels demanded.

“We lost eighty fighters, twenty pilots,” Blake reported.

“How are the other sixty casualties?”

“Twenty will be out of action for some time; we’ll be sending them to the Sakira on the next Oryx,” Blake said.  “The others will recover in a couple of days.  Captain Clark, your son flew one of our pickets, so he was safe.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” Captain Clark said.  “How did he take it?”

“He didn’t like it, but it was the only duty the doctor would clear him for, so he didn’t argue too much,” Liz said.

“How can they afford to lose so many pilots?” Commander Frankham asked.

“I don’t think they are,” Catie said.

“What do you mean?” Blake asked.

“Given their performance, I bet over half of those Foxes were remotely piloted,” Catie said.  “And they’re most likely the ones that were totally destroyed, without ejecting their pods.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Liz said.  “It’s good to see that they are feeling the stress on their resources.”

“Admiral Michaels, I am analyzing the sensor data from the probes we have observing the asteroid,” ADI said.  “It appears that four Lynxes have just landed there.”

“Getting more pilots,” Catie said.

“Unfortunately, I agree with you,” Admiral Michaels said.

“We’re ready to bring the Fists to you,” Catie said.  “I’m planning to fly an Oryx out tomorrow with them and the printer we need to seal them.”

“We’ll be waiting for you,” Blake said.  “We have to end this thing somehow.”

“Agreed!” Admiral Michaels said.  “Let’s hope we’ve bought enough time with this last engagement.”

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie and Natalia arrived on the Enterprise the next afternoon.  Blake and Liz met them in the flight bay and walked them to Blake’s quarters

“Why is everyone so tense?” she asked.  She had sensed the tension since she landed.

“We just held the funerals,” Blake said.

“Oh.”

“I want you to bunk with me,” Liz said.  “I’ve had them open up the top berth for you.”

“I can just grab a bunk with one of the other pilots,” Catie said.

“Not a chance, I’m not sharing you with anyone,” Liz said.  “Natalia, if you want, you can bunk with my yeoman, she’s just down the hall.”

“That’ll work for me,” Natalia said.

“Let’s get you settled; then we’ll take you down to where Fred’s setting up your Fists,” Liz said.  “Captain?”

“I’ll see the three of you for dinner,” Blake said.  “Carry on.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hey, Catie,” Fred said.  “Pardon me, Lieutenant McCormack I meant to say.”

“Fred, I’m always Catie to you,” Catie said as she gave Fred a hug.

Fred had cordoned off a section of the flight bay for the Fists.  They were keeping the details of it secret until they were confident they were actually going to deploy them.  The flight bay was depressurized, and several crewmen were maneuvering the Fists into the bay.  The Oryx was backed up right against the bay’s doors, so it only took an hour to bring all six in.  The printer only took five minutes to bring in, then they pressurized the bay and brought some other crewmen in to set the printer up.

“Are you really going to crawl inside that thing?” Fred asked.

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” Catie said.  “I can tell you one thing; someone better have a bottle of scotch handy when they cut me out of it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have one on hand,” Liz said.  “When will it be ready to test?”

“Tomorrow night,” Catie said.  “I want to do it on the off-shift to minimize the potential audience.  They should have completed the final installation by then.”

Catie spent a few hours finalizing the instructions for the crew before she left Fred to finish up the first Fist.  They would be working on them around the clock to have all six ready in the three days the admiral had allocated.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hey, did you see what was in that Oryx?” one of the pilots asked.  He was sitting down at a table in the mess hall with his buddies.

“Nope, they wouldn’t let anyone get close to it,” another one replied.

“I hear it’s going to take the rest of our wounded and the prisoners back to Jupiter,” the first one said.

“I heard that Her Highness Catie was aboard it,” another pilot said.

“I heard that too; apparently she’s having dinner with her uncle.  She must be too good to eat with us mere mortals.”

“Well, she’s definitely been too good to go out and get shot at with us mere mortals,” the first pilot said.

“Can it,” Jason snapped.  “You idiots don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

“Hey, you’re out here fighting with us,” the first pilot said.  “I’m sure your dad could have gotten you a nice safe job like Catie’s.”

“You idiot, who do you think designed those counterstrike missiles and those laser mines?  I’ll tell you who, she did.  So do you want her flying with you, or designing the stuff that keeps those Paraxeans from shooting your ass out of the sky?”

“I didn’t know . . . ,” the pilot stuttered.

“And another thing, she’s fourteen years old!” Jason said.

“No way!”

“That’s right, I heard that before,” one of the pilots said.  “Hey Jackson, my sister is sixteen, do you want me to send for her so she can babysit you?”

“Shut up!” Jackson said.

◆ ◆ ◆

Catie took a deep breath, then she crawled inside the Fist.  She wiggled around until she got fully seated and had her feet on the pedals that would allow her to direct the gravity drive to maneuver the Fist.  She put the helmet for her spacesuit on and gave the crew chief a thumbs up to tell him to start sealing her in.

The space was so tight that she couldn’t really move her arms; they were fitted into the slots that gave her access to the plasma cannons and the lasers.  She would only be able to fire one or the other.  The lasers would be on automatic unless the controls were knocked out by an EMP; if that happened, she would have to aim them using one of the eight mirrors set up to give her a view of the back of the sphere.  There were strategically located polyglass windows to allow viewing in the various angles that she would want to be able to protect herself.  Then there was the single window in front of her that would be facing the target.

“How are you doing in there?” Natalia asked.

“I feel like a sardine,” Catie said.

“I can believe it,” Natalia said.  “No way you could get me to get into one of these.”

“You wouldn’t fit anyway,” Catie said.  “Max height is one hundred seventy-three centimeters, and they better not be carrying any extra weight.”

“Do we have enough pilots that small?” Natalia asked.

“A couple of hundred,” Catie said.

“That’s good; do you think any of them will be willing to volunteer?”

“I hope so.  I hope we don’t have to sedate them to get them into this thing.  Isn’t he done yet?”

“Settle down, he’s almost finished,” Natalia said.  “So you’re going to let Liz and Kasper shoot at you?”

“That’s the plan,” Catie said.  “Four plasma cannons from a Hyrax will deliver the same energy as the plasma cannon from that battleship.”

“I thought the battleship’s cannon had more power than that.”

“It does, but only the three-meter center of the beam can do anything,” Catie said.  “The rest of the beam will just go right on by.”

“Oh, right.  I forgot about that part.  Pretty lame since we were talking about how small it is in there.”

“I’m okay with lame,” Catie said.  “Anything to keep my mind off this thing.  By the way, how are you and Paul doing?”

“We’re doing just fine.  You know he came out to Jupiter, right?”

“Of course I did,” Catie said.  “Who else could be putting that big smile on your face.”

“He does make me smile,” Natalia said.  “Now when are you going to find a boyfriend?  There are lots of nice pilots out here.”

“Mommy says I can’t date until I’m fifteen,” Catie said.

“That is kind of nuts, you know.  You can’t date, but you can crawl inside of that thing.”

“She doesn’t know about this, and don’t you dare tell her,” Catie said.  “Besides, I’m not really interested in boys right now.”

“Hey girl, you have to get over that creep, Frankie,” Natalia said.

“I’m over him; I even deleted that video from my comm.”  Catie was referring to the video that Natalia had a friend make of her giving Frankie the come on, then slamming him with a hard rejection.  It had made him look a complete fool, and had made the rounds of all his military buddies.

“I’m sure ADI still has a copy,” Natalia said, “just in case.”

“I do have a copy,” ADI said, “and you might like to know that it is up to two million hits.”

Catie laughed at that.  “I’m glad to hear that.  Thanks, ADI.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Catie, you’re ready to go, are you going to fly it out, or do you want some guys to pick it up and carry it out?”

“I’ll fly it,” Catie said as she engaged the gravity drive.

The three-meter sphere that Catie had dubbed Odin’s Fist rose off the deck of the flight bay.  The crew chief had deployed the screen that allowed the rest of the flight bay to stay pressurized while they opened the doors to allow the Fist to exit.  Catie was glad to be engaged with flying it; she had been barely able to keep the panic down while she talked to Natalia.  The dark coffin-like sphere was so restrictive, it felt like she was buried alive.

Pushing those thoughts from her mind, Catie accelerated the Fist away from the carrier and toward the waiting Hyraxes flown by Kasper and Liz.  They had the picket flight space a little farther out than normal, trying to minimize the audience as much as possible.

“Hey, Catie,” Blake said, “you doing okay?”

“I’m fine, Uncle Blake,” Catie lied.  Her voice had a quiver to it, so she knew he knew.

“Just hang in there,” Blake said.  “Tell them when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” Catie said.

Liz flew her Hyrax in and engaged one of its plasma cannons firing on the Fist.

Catie maneuvered the Fist around inside the beam.  “Capacitors charging, hull temp stable,” she announced.  “Give me the second cannon.”

Liz fired the Hyrax’s second forward cannon, adjusting its position, so both beams fully encased the sphere.

“Capacitors fully charged, plasma cannon automatically engaged,” Catie said.  The sphere was now shooting a plasma beam out of its forward cannon.  “Capacitors holding at eighty percent.”

“Are you ready for some more?” Kasper asked.

“Bring it on,” Catie said.  “Give me both at once.”

Kasper maneuvered his Hyrax into position and engaged both of his forward cannons at once.

“Capacitors spiked to ninety percent; the beam increased power to compensate, capacitors back to eighty percent.  Okay, both of you cut your cannons, then engage them together on my mark.”

With the cannons off, Catie let the capacitors discharge to fifty percent before she cut her plasma cannon off.  “Hit me!”

Liz and Kasper engaged all four cannons within milliseconds of each other.

“Capacitors spiked to ninety-five percent, now holding steady at eighty,” Catie said.  “I think we need to adjust the sensitivity of the trigger.  I’d rather we avoid that spike.”

“You’ve got it,” Fred said.  “Are you ready to test that magnetic coupling?”

“Sure, where’s the Oryx?”  Tests had shown that an Oryx filled with the iron-nickel slugs would be the best proxy for the Paraxean battleship.

“Ten degrees to starboard and two thousand meters,” Fred said.

“On my way.”

Catie guided the Fist over toward the Oryx.  Once she was within twenty meters of it, she engaged the magnetic couples; she immediately felt the Fist connect with the Oryx.

“Okay, try to shake me,” she said.

“Rolling,” Jason said.  “Now twisting . . . a little acceleration.”

“I’m stuck to you like a tick!” Catie said.

“Eww, try a different analogy,” Jason quipped.

“Now how about a sting?” Catie said as she engaged her plasma cannon.  She had it set to ten percent so the Oryx’s hull would be able to handle the energy.  She just wanted to see if the cannon would interfere with the magnetic coupling.

“Ride him, Cowgirl,” Liz said.

Jason went through the list of maneuvers Catie had given him, one after another.  After he finished, he improvised a few.

“Okay, I’m out of ideas,” Jason said.

“Good, I’m tired.  Disengaging coupling,” Catie said as she released the magnetic coupling and started the Fist back to the Enterprise flight bay.  While she was maneuvering it, she kept her eyes and mind focused out the polyglass window, fighting to keep the sense of panic from rising up again.  While she had been engaged with the Oryx and the Hyraxes, the action had kept her distracted, but now that things were calm, her mind couldn’t help wonder how long it would take to get her out of the Fist.

She had barely set the Fist down before Charlie Hopkins, the crew chief, was cutting the top off the Fist.  It took him twenty minutes to cut a small hole so that at least Catie could see that she was being freed.  It was another hour before he had enlarged it enough to allow Catie to exit.

“How’s my girl?” Blake said, giving Catie a big hug.

“Where’s my scotch?” Catie asked.

“Your dad said I could give you a full measure,” Blake said as he handed her a glass.

“Good thing,” Catie said.

“Hey, Cowgirl,” Liz said as she, Jason, and Kasper joined Catie and Blake.

Natalia snuck up behind Catie and put a cowboy hat on her head.

Catie laughed, “Where did you find this thing?”

“Yeoman Waters found it for me,” Natalia said.  “I couldn’t resist after I heard Liz call you a cowgirl.”

“So, what do you think?” Blake asked.

“With a few adjustments, I think they’ll do the job,” Catie said.

“How did you fit into that thing?” Kasper asked.

“Barely,” Catie said.  “And don’t worry, you won’t fit in it.”

“Whew,” Kasper said.  “I’m glad I don’t have to volunteer.”

“They say ‘volunteer’ because you don’t have to do it,” Catie said.

“Hey, I’m not letting you shame me again,” Kasper laughed.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hi, Daddy,” Catie said.

“Hi, Sweetie, I hear the test went well.”

“It did,” Catie said.

“Good, are we on track to deploy tomorrow?”

“Yes, that’s what I want to talk to you about,” Catie said.

“I’m not going to like this, am I,” Marc said.

“Probably not.  I want to fly one of them.”

“WHY?”

“Because I can’t ask four pilots to do it while I stay on the carrier.  It is really scary to climb into that thing.”

“But you’ve done it already,” Marc said.  “What do you have to prove?”

“Nothing, but if I was just any other pilot, I would be expected to fly it,” Catie said.

“But . . .”

“I know I’m only fourteen, but there are over fifty guys who are never going to get any older.  I have to do this.”

“Your mother will kill us both!”

“Don’t tell her,” Catie said.

“But what if something happens?”

“Then I guess we’ll have much bigger problems,” Catie said.

“I really want to talk you out of this,” Marc said.

“I’m not willing to be talked out of it.”

“None of this will have been worth it if something happens to you!”

“That’s not true.  There is all of humanity to do it for.  I’m just one person, even if I am the cutest one,” Catie said.

“You have me there.  You know I love you more than anything.”

“I love you too, Daddy.  We’ll talk tomorrow at the sendoff.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Attention, pilots,” Blake announced as he started the meeting.  “You’ve been asked here because you all meet the physical criteria to be able to volunteer for this mission.”

Everyone looked around the flight bay; after a bit, they all realized that everyone in the audience was of slight stature, and over half were women.  They turned their attention back to Captain Blake to see what their small stature had qualified them for.

Catie used her HUD to guide one of the Fists into the center of the room, in front of Blake.

“What you see before you is Odin’s Fist,” Blake said.  “It is what is going to finally put paid to that Paraxean battleship.  It has a very restricted interior; its pilot must be between 5’ 4” and 5’ 9”, and had better have been maintaining their conditioning.”

The group laughed at that, and a few of them started sticking their stomachs out so they looked heavier.

“We have six of them; two are going to be held in reserve; four will actually attack the battleship.”

That got a rise out of the group.  “You have to be crazy.  I wouldn’t want to get into that thing, much less try to attack that battleship with it.”

“This is not a bar!” Liz barked.  “I expect you to be at parade rest!”

“Please direct your attention to the wall display,” Blake said.  “We’ll show you why it’s not so insane.”

The image of the four Hyraxes and the Fist came on the display.  It was the video showing the test Catie had conducted the night before.  The Hyraxes were just floating beside the Fist, waiting for Catie’s signal.  Then they engaged their cannons, engulfing the Fist in four plasma beams.  The plasma beam erupted from the sphere aimed away from the Hyraxes, but it was clear to everyone that it was the biggest plasma beam they’d ever seen.

“Our analysis and test show that the Fist can withstand the plasma cannon from the battleship and redirect the energy into it.  In fact, it can withstand two of the cannons by engaging a second plasma cannon.  You would need to move out of range of the second cannon within five minutes, but I’m sure the pilot wouldn’t need any prompting.”

The next image showed the Fist coupled to the Oryx as Jason took it through various maneuvers.  “The Fist will magnetically couple to the battleship and can’t be shaken off.  It has small gravity drives that allow it to maintain its position, but it needs to be magnetically coupled in case the battleship starts to spin or accelerate away.”

“How do you deploy the thing?” someone asked.

“Did I say you could ask questions!” Liz barked.

“I’ll answer that question, then open the floor to questions,” Blake said.  “The deployment is not for the faint of heart.  The Fist is put into a Hyrax instead of a pod; then the Hyrax flies at the battleship until the battleship or one of the Paraxean Foxes destroys it; then the Fist ejects like a pod and continues on to the battleship.”

“Who . . . ,” the pilot caught himself and waited.

“Okay, questions?”

“And make them respectful!” Liz said.

“Why that method of deployment?” the pilot rephrased his question.

“Because we don’t want the Paraxeans to realize what they are until they’ve coupled to the battleship,” Blake said.  “If they do, then they just need to use their Foxes to push the Fists away, and the mission will fail.”

“Why don’t you just use a robotic pilot?”

“First question we asked the designer,” Blake said.  “Because one EMP pulse and the robotic pilot is toast.  Everything in it is designed for manual controls; it uses thick film electronics that can be hardened against EMP, but that requires a human pilot.”

“Why so small?”

“As you saw in the demonstration, the two Hyraxes’ plasma cannons totally engulfed the Fist with little to no spillover; that simulates the same power as one of the battleship’s main cannons.  Those cannons have a five-meter beam, the Fist is only three meters, so it only has to deal with thirty-six percent of the beam’s power.  The bigger it is, the more power it would have to manage.  The designer determined this was the optimum size.”

“I’ll bet the designer is six foot four and two hundred fifty pounds.”

“Was that a question, Lieutenant Jackson,” Liz barked.

“No, Ma’am.  I apologize,” Lieutenant Jackson said.

“You are incorrect,” Blake said.  “The designer was also our first test pilot and our first volunteer, Lieutenant Catie McCormack.  I’m sure she will be willing to answer any further questions.  Those who want to volunteer, please talk with Commander Farmer.”

Catie walked out from behind the group of pilots and took up position next to the Fist.

“Attention!  Dismissed!” Liz said, then she and Blake left the room to allow the group to have a more informal discussion.

“What made you think of this thing?” one of the women pilots asked.

“It’s obvious that we have to get close to the battleship if we want to disable it.  Even the railguns don’t do enough,” Catie said.  “With these, we can cut through its hull.  If we can destroy or damage their reactors, then it’ll become a floating hotel.”

“Wouldn’t they be able to repair the reactors?”

“Unlikely.  The reactor design is not conducive to repair; it typically has to be completely replaced,” Catie said.  She didn’t want to have to explain that the Paraxeans really didn’t understand the reactors and would need to print the whole thing, much less the fact that the same was true for them at this time.

“Where’s the door?”

“There isn’t one,” Catie said.

“What?”

“They have to print the hull closed so there are no gaps,” Catie said.  “They have to cut you out afterward.”

“You mean they seal you in?”

“Hey, what’s the big deal,” Jason said.  “When you crawl into that cockpit pod on the Hyrax or Fox, you might as well be sealed in.  You’re not getting out until you’re back aboard the ship.  It just takes a little longer with this thing.”

“So big mouth, are you going to volunteer?”

“You bet I am,” Jason said.  “I might have to wear thin-soled shoes, but I’m going to fly one of these.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Hey, Liz, what are you doing?” Catie asked after she entered Liz's cabin.

“Reviewing our volunteers,” Liz said.

“How many did we get?”

“Twenty-two,” Liz said.

“Wow, that many.”

“Surprised?”

“Yeah, I didn’t think that many showed much interest.”

“I suspect that for a few, their friends shamed them into it,” Liz said.  “Those are the ones I want to eliminate.”

“Does that mean you’re going to nix Jason?”

“Nobody shamed him,” Liz said.  “I know he’s your friend, but that wouldn’t matter, he’d be the first to volunteer anyway.”

“Who are you cutting?”

“That loudmouth, Jackson,” Liz said.  “And there were a few I noticed who looked like they really wanted to be anyplace else but that flight bay.  I was surprised when they volunteered.”

“So, after that, how many are there?”

“Eight,” Liz said.  “That’s besides you and Jason.”

“So four spares,” Catie said.

“So far.  I want them to sit in that thing with a lid on it before I approve them,” Liz said.  “We don’t want to find out someone is claustrophobic after we seal them in.”

“Probably a good idea,” Catie said, “but I suggest we let them watch some kind of video on their HUD while they do it.  It’s really tough when nothing is happening.”

“I’ll pass that on; now you’d better get some rest, we’re expecting the Paraxeans back any day now.”

“Are they on our sensors?”

“Not now.  They won’t show up unless they power those gravity drives or their Foxes are out maneuvering around.”

Chapter 30

Coup de Grâce

It was fifty-two hours before the Paraxeans returned.  This time they sent Foxes out well in front of the fleet to sweep the area for any mines or silent-running missiles.  They had eight hundred Foxes arrayed around the fleet, and they were accelerating at 0.1G.

“Okay, what does this tell us?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“They must have found a real military professional in one of those stasis pods,” Catie said.

“I agree, they’re still ten hours out, and they’ve got picket fighters out well in front of them sweeping the area,” Blake said.  “They’re keeping their carriers well back from the battleship and their fighter wings.”

“But they’re still very two dimensional,” Catie said.

“What do you mean by that?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Their pickets are in a thirty-degree range above and below their line of advance.  It’s like they think we have to approach them along the ecliptic,” Catie said.

“You would have to go a long way out of your way to attack them from a more extreme angle,” Liz said.

“No, I agree with Catie,” Captain Clark said.  “They’re coming in like I would arrange a wing of bombers and fighters.  I fall into that trap on almost every simulation I run.”

“Well, so far, we’ve adhered to that,” Admiral Michaels said.  “During the previous engagements, all of our forces have been arrayed within that angle.  Why didn’t you say something before?”

“I thought you were doing it on purpose,” Catie said.  “Judging what they would do, how far they would probe without giving them something to remind them that we could come at them from any angle.”

“I wish that were true,” Admiral Michaels said.  “I might have done it that way if I had thought about it, but quite frankly, I was caught in the same two-dimensional trap.”

“Okay, so how do we get Odin’s Fists against the battleship?” Blake asked.

“We attack their carriers again,” Captain Clark said.

“You want to circle above and down?” Admiral Michaels said.

“Yes, with a max acceleration, we can put our fighters on a vector above their sensor sweeps.  Let them coast until they’re high enough, then they kick their engines on long enough to send them back behind the Paraxean carriers, then they come in from behind, vectoring down at forty-five degrees.”

“And the Fists?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Let’s assume they realign the battlefield between the attack from behind and us.  So we bring the Fists up from below, forty-five degrees from the old battle plane and ninety degrees from the new one,” Captain Clark said.  “And I can see from Catie’s smile that she agrees with me.”

“What kind of forces do we send?” Admiral Michaels said.

“Eight squadrons for the carriers.  Two squadrons with the Fists,” Captain Clark said.  “When we start attacking the carriers, we send another sixteen squadrons right at them.”

“Isn’t that a bit two-dimensional?” Blake asked.

“We want them to be comfortable in that two-dimensional thinking,” Captain Clark said.  “That gives the squadrons with the Fists the maximum time to run silent.”

“What about mines and missiles running silent?” Captain Clements asked.

“Let’s keep those out of it,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Make them keep wondering where they are.”

“I like it,” Blake said.  “All except the part where my niece is sealed in that Fist for eight hours.”

“I’m sure none of us likes that part,” Admiral Michaels said.  “I’ll have a few cases of scotch waiting; we’ll all want some no matter how this goes.”

◆ ◆ ◆

It took two hours to seal the pilots in the Fists, then they were mounted into their Hyraxes, and the Odin Squadrons launched and headed below the ecliptic.  The eight squadrons of Hyraxes that were targeting the carriers had left two hours ago, vectoring above the ecliptic.  The Paraxeans were still eight hours away.

Catie was watching the outtakes of the Jetsons, and the outtakes of Rocky & Bullwinkle that ADI had made for her to keep her distracted while she let ADI fly her Hyrax.  All the Fist pilots were watching one form of video or another.  They had thanked Catie profusely for her advice about watching a video during their test.  All had been busy using the simulator to train on the Fist after that.  None of them wanted to run any simulation while they were actually sealed inside it.

“Remind me again who the crazy was that thought this idea up?” Jason asked.

“I think it was that McCormack girl,” Lieutenant Kay Owens said.

“Yeah, I think so too; everyone I’ve talked to says she’s a complete loon,” Lieutenant Mariam Beaulieu said.

“Come on guys, quit complaining; it’s only been four hours,” Catie said.

“That’s why we’re complaining,” Jason said.  “We’ve got another four hours of this, and for some reason, I cannot go to sleep.”

“Probably because you’re worried you won’t wake up if you sleep in that coffin you’re in,” Lieutenant Owens said.

“You got that right,” Lieutenant Beaulieu said.  “You won’t catch me sleeping in this thing.  In Canada, we take people like that McCormack girl and leave them out on the tundra for the fairies to get.”

“Anybody want to play chess?” Catie asked.

“I just told you I wouldn’t be caught dead sleeping in this thing, and you want me to play chess?”

◆ ◆ ◆

The Hyraxes targeting the carriers were within twenty thousand kilometers and still had not been detected.  They fired off eight rounds from their railguns, using their lasers to heat the slugs so that they would spread out and cause maximum damage when they sliced through the carriers’ hulls.  Their delta-V with the carriers was one hundred fifty kilometers per second, giving the slugs an additional seventy kilometer per second delta-V.  The Hyraxes continued to coast, hoping that the slugs would not be detected before they started hitting the carriers.

The Delphinean carriers launched another sixteen squadrons, which quickly formed up into two wings and accelerated toward the Paraxean battleship and the Paraxean Foxes arrayed in front of it.

Seven minutes later, the first slugs hit the carriers; then the Hyraxes lit up their engines and accelerated toward the carriers, launching another hail of slugs from their railguns, before they launched their first salvo of missiles.

The Paraxean Foxes that were guarding the carriers immediately redeployed and prepared to intercept the missiles.  The carriers started to maneuver at right angles to the incoming slugs, hoping to get out of the way of any further salvos.  The Delphinean Hyraxes had anticipated this action and targeted the areas they expected the carriers to move into for their second salvo.  The carriers launched another six hundred Foxes, hoping to get as many fighters into space as they could before they were disabled.  The Hyraxes changed their attack vector so that they were angling away from the carriers and their Foxes; the Paraxean missiles wouldn’t be able to intercept them for another ten minutes, but soon their velocity would put them beyond even the missiles’ range.

Having seen the effectiveness of the Paraxean shrapnel missiles, the Delphinean team had modified enough missiles to that configuration so that each Hyrax carried four of them.  They launched two salvos of one shrapnel missile and one counterstrike missile each as they prepared to meet the oncoming Paraxean missiles.

Their first salvo cut the number of missiles heading their way from two thousand down to eight hundred; the next salvo cut that number down to two hundred.

“Okay, boys and girls, time to earn that flight pay,” Kasper said.  “Let’s keep their attention.  Launch the rest of those missiles--no use bringing them back to the carriers.”

The first salvo of Paraxean missiles flew into the Hyraxes; the pilots were able to knock down or avoid most of them.  Any missile that didn’t manage a strike was out of the game due to the Hyraxes’ velocity.  They lost five Hyraxes to the first salvo and none to the second.  By then, they were out of range and accelerating back above the ecliptic to come back around.

The Paraxean Foxes had only lost forty Foxes from the Delphinean missiles that made it through the missile scrum, but now they were facing two thousand of the hardened Delphinean missiles.  They launched everything they had at the incoming missiles.  Only four hundred Delphinean missiles made it through the scrum, but the Paraxeans had little left with which to defend themselves.  The Delphinean missiles were guided by weapons officers on the Foxes that were well above the fray and managed to score 50% against the Paraxeans, confirming Catie’s suspicion that many of them were piloted by robots.

The Paraxeans’ lead wing launched two salvos of missiles, twelve hundred missiles in each salvo.  The Hyraxes continued to accelerate toward the Paraxeans, waiting until they were within ten thousand kilometers before launching their first two salvos of missiles.  Seven hundred sixty-eight Delphinean missiles entered the scrum against the twelve hundred Paraxean missiles.  In this engagement, the Paraxeans had spotters out to help guide the missiles, but they were being beset by Hyraxes that were coming in from far above the ecliptic.  Three hundred Paraxean missiles made it through the scrum, while four hundred twenty Delphinean missiles made it through to the other side.  The Hyraxes launched two more salvos of missiles sending seven hundred sixty-eight missiles at the Paraxeans; after this, they would be too close to launch any more.  The Paraxeans launched two more salvos also, but this time they fired two thousand in each salvo.

The fighters continued to accelerate toward each other; with their high velocities, they would only have seconds of engagement before they were beyond the enemy fighters.  The Delphinean carriers launched eight more squadrons to handle any Paraxean Foxes that got through.  The first two salvos of Paraxean missiles were decimated by the third salvo of Delphinean missiles.  Five hundred Delphinean missiles exited the scrum, bearing down on the Paraxeans’ last two salvos.

The leading three hundred missiles from the Hyraxes met the Paraxean Foxes.  The spotters did their job, scoring 40% against the Paraxeans.  Almost one hundred sixty Foxes were disabled or destroyed, leaving a little over three-hundred sixty Paraxean Foxes facing the next two salvos and the Delphinean Hyraxes.

“Why haven’t they launched any more Foxes?” Liz asked.

“I’m not sure their carriers can launch more right now,” Blake said as he pointed to the display and the data showing the damage to the Paraxean carriers.

“I hope you’re right,” Liz said.  “We’ve evened out the numbers so far.”

The next wave of missiles intersected, the previous numbers held, and with help from the weapons officers, four hundred Delphinean missiles made it through the scrum while only two hundred Paraxean missiles made it through.

It was too late for the Paraxean Foxes to turn back; they changed their vector to angle above the ecliptic and minimize the engagement time, but they would not be able to bypass the Hyraxes.  The Delphinean wing matched the Paraxeans’ new vector and went to 3Gs for two minutes to maximize the time of engagement.

The two wings slammed into each other.  The Hyraxes were far more agile than the Paraxean Foxes, and it showed.  They took out Fox after Fox as they passed by each other; when the two sides were past each other and beyond range of their weapons, there were four hundred Hyraxes still flying and only twenty Paraxean Foxes.

One of the squadrons of Hyraxes that had just been launched accelerated to intercept the Paraxean Foxes.  They had to accelerate at 3Gs for two minutes to guarantee an intercept.  When it was obvious that they would be caught before they could reach their lines, twelve of the Paraxean Foxes ejected their cockpit pods.  The twenty Foxes continued to race toward their lines; when the Hyraxes caught up with them, they easily took them out with their missiles.

The four hundred Hyraxes maintained their vector to the battleship and its fighter screen of three hundred Foxes.  The Paraxean Foxes hunkered down inside the battleship’s cannon range and waited.  The Hyraxes fired off a salvo of missiles and two rounds from their railguns; then they adjusted their vectors to allow them to pass under or above the battleship.

When the missiles got close to the battleship, its lasers reached out and started destroying them.  The battleship easily dispatched all the missiles, the range of its lasers being far greater than that of the Foxes.  The Delphinean slugs tore holes into the battleship’s hull and even took out a few Paraxean Foxes as the hailstorm reached them.  The Hyraxes launched two more salvos of missiles at the Paraxeans’ battleship before vectoring off as hard as they could.  It was at this time that the Odin squadrons struck.  They engaged their engines right as they launched eight rounds from their railguns.  Then they launched two salvos of missiles at the battleship before vectoring off.  Sixteen of the Hyraxes held course toward the battleship, all of them being flown by ADI, but only four of them held Odin’s Fist.  The battleship easily dispatched the missiles and started to roll in order to minimize the number of hits from the slugs that could impact one spot.  The Hyraxes started firing their plasma cannons so that they would maximize the capacitor storage available when the plasma cannons from the battleship struck.

“Yee-Haw!” Jason yelled as his Hyrax took the first hit.  It survived for 1.2 seconds, then the Hyrax exploded and the Fist was ejected into space.  Catie’s Hyrax was the next to go, taking its hit from the battleship’s rear plasma cannon.

“I’ve got a lock!” Jason reported.

“So do I,” Catie replied.

“I’m going to miss that thing,” Mariam said.  “I’ll try to maneuver back to it.”

“No, do not show any ability to maneuver,” Catie ordered.

“I bounced,” Kay reported.  “Let me know when I can maneuver, I’m only thirty meters out.”

“Go ahead and try to get close enough.  Mariam, how far out are you?”

“One hundred meters.”

“Then just play dead,” Catie ordered.  “You don’t want them to target you, and we don’t want them to have any chance to learn about the Fists.”

“I’ve got a lock,” Kay said.

“Okay, maneuver as close to the plasma cannon as you can, then kick it,” Catie said.  Her Fist was just outside the firing arc of the big plasma cannon.  “They’re targeting me with their defensive cannons, I’m letting my capacitors charge up to eighty percent before I engage my cannon.”

“Copy, I’ll do the same,” Jason said.  “I’m one minute from reaching the big cannon on my side.”

“Good, remember to target the area ten meters from the cannon, we want to take out the reactor if we can instead of just knocking out the cannon.”

“Copy, I’m in range of my cannon now,” Kay said.

“I’m firing my cannon now,” Catie said.  “Capacitors holding steady at eighty percent.”

“They’re now targeting me with the main cannon,” Jason announced.

“Then dig into them,” Catie said.  “I’ve got a main cannon on me also; I’m starting to penetrate the hull.”

“I’ve got a Fox targeting me with its cannon,” Kay reported.

“We’re coming to help,” Lieutenant Kruger, one of the Hyrax pilots, announced.  “I’m thirty seconds out, firing missiles now!”

“How are you doing, Kay?” Catie asked.

“Hull temperature is up two degrees, but my cannon is digging faster, I’m almost through the hull.”

“They’ve started firing at me,” Mariam said.

“Do you need help?” Lieutenant Kruger asked.

“I’m good; they’re just charging my lasers; that will let me start fighting back.  I can sit here and help cover the others until they’re done.”

“Good girl,” Catie said.  “My plasma cannon is digging fast.  The battleship is still blanking me with the plasma cannon.”

“Same here,” Kay announced.  “I’m barely managing to keep my capacitors below ninety percent.  I may need to start firing a laser to keep them from overcharging.”

“A laser won’t disrupt your plasma cannon,” Catie said, “go ahead and use it.”

“I’m through!” Jason said.  “Now panning my cannon to maximize inside damage.”

“I’m through as well!” Catie said.  “And I’ve got two Foxes on me with their cannons.”

“Two missiles coming your way!” Lieutenant Kruger called out.

“I’ve got yours, Kay,” Mariam said.

“Thanks, he just blew,” Kay announced.  “And I’m through, panning my cannon.”

“Mine went down; I’m moving to the last of the battleship’s cannons,” Jason announced.

“There goes mine,” Catie said, “coming your way.”

◆ ◆ ◆

“Captain, Commodore Warlmag is on the Centag quantum,” ADI announced.

“Put him through,” Marc said.  “Commodore Warlmag, what can I do for you?”

“We want to offer our surrender,” Commodore Warlmag said.  “Please have those battle spheres of yours stop.  We only have one more reactor, and if they destroy it, we will lose power, and the stasis pods aboard this vessel will fail.”

“You don’t need the antimatter reactors to power your ship.”

“Correct, but the fusion reactors are coupled with them, and if you destroy the antimatter reactor, the fusion reactor will be destroyed by the power feedback.”

“Then I suggest you surrender.”

“What are your terms?” Commodore Warlmag asked.

“Unconditional!”

“That is not acceptable!” Commodore Warlmag yelled.

“You have fifty seconds before they finish destroying the last antimatter reactor,” Marc said.  He had quietly signaled Catie’s team to slow down to allow time for the negotiations.

“We are ready to assault the carriers,” Admiral Michaels said, cutting into the communication as Marc had instructed.

“Thank you, Admiral.  Please proceed,” Marc said.  “Thirty seconds.”

“Alright, we surrender,” Commodore Warlmag said.

“Admiral, we have their surrender; please hold off hostilities for the next minute,” Marc ordered.  “Commodore, I need you to make your DIs subordinate to mine.  ADI, please send him the security code.”

“Done, Captain,” ADI said.

“Your code has been transmitted to our DIs,” Commodore Warlmag said.

“I have control of the DIs,” ADI said.

“Admiral Michaels, we have completed the surrender; please take control of the enemy forces.”

“Yes, sir!”

◆ ◆ ◆

“We did it!” Catie yelled as she received confirmation of the surrender.

“Oh, thank god,” Kay said.  “Someone come and get us!”

“An Oryx is two minutes out,” ADI said.  “Would you like some music?”

“Please!” Catie answered for everyone.

“You do realize that since ADI is talking to us, we must have survived all the EMPs from the missiles, and they must not have tried a super EMP on us.  We could have let her fly these things,” Jason said.

“That’s not true,” Catie said.  “She’s talking over the quantum relay, my normal comm is fried.”

“Oh, you’re right, so is mine.  I guess that means that all our control circuits are fried as well,” Jason said.

“Yep, the only things that are working are the manual controls.”

“I guess that makes me feel better.  They are going to start cutting us out as soon as we’re on the Oryx.”

“They’d better,” Kay said, “or I’m turning this plasma cannon back on!”

“There are four crews prepared to cut you out as soon as you’re on board,” ADI said.

“Thank god,” Catie said.

“And I believe they have a bottle of your uncle’s finest scotch with them,” ADI said.

“Good old Uncle Blake, you can always count on him,” Catie said.

“You are sharing?” Kay asked.

“Of course, I’m only allowed one finger,” Catie said.

“Two fingers for this occasion,” ADI said.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Report,” Admiral Michaels said as they all gathered in the briefing rooms of their respective carriers and established a 3-D link to the briefing room on the Sakira.

“We lost one hundred twenty Hyraxes in the last encounter, forty pilots were killed, thirty have serious injuries, and forty have minor injuries,” Blake said.  “We have three hundred Paraxean pilots that we captured, one hundred of them have serious injuries.”

“Can we send their injured back to their carriers?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“Yes, Admiral,” Dr. Metra said.  “I’ve spoken with their doctor, and they have the capacity to handle them.”

“What’s the state of their carriers?” Admiral Michaels asked.

“They are effecting repairs now; the last storm of slugs tore up their flight bays and blocked their ability to launch.  They have eight hundred Foxes between them; the rest are floating junk in the space around them,” Fred said.  “Their gravity drives and engines are operable, no issues with life support, but one of them has two decks that are open to space.”

“What’s the status of the battleship?” Marc asked.

“The damage control team is working to stabilize the power and clean up after the three destroyed reactors.  It’s quite a mess in there.”

“ADI, what’s the situation with their DIs?” Marc asked.

“The DIs have recognized the surrender, and are now subordinate to me,” ADI said.  “I am reviewing their code to make sure there are no viruses or hidden routines.  With the code we have from their previous viruses, I should be able to detect any that are hidden in the code.”

“I’m especially concerned with those Foxes,” Marc said.

“I understand, Captain.  Cer Fred is removing the control electronics from them.”

“That’s right,” Fred said.  “My guys are pulling them out; we’ll replace as many as we can with our own, but the priority is to remove them.”

“Okay,” Marc said, “then tomorrow, I’m going to announce to the UN that hostilities have ceased and we have the Paraxeans’ surrender.”

“I can’t tell you how proud we are of all of you,” Samantha said.  “We can’t wait until you all get home.”

“We’ll be heading your way as soon as we’ve cleaned up,” Blake said.  “Do you know what you want to do with the Paraxeans?”

“I’m waiting until I talk with the UN,” Marc said.  “Does anyone have an idea?”

“We could put them on Mars,” Catie suggested.

“Possibly,” Marc said.  “We’ll have to see what options we have.”

“We have several hundred that are receiving medical treatment,” Admiral Michaels said.  “Should we put the others into stasis?”

“If Dr. Metra thinks it’s safe,” Marc said.  “We don’t really have the resources to deal with ten thousand prisoners.”

“We’ll take care of it,” the admiral said.  “We’ll be a couple of weeks at least getting things straightened out.”

“Are we finished?” Marc asked.

“Unless you have something else,” the admiral said.

“Just one thing.  Catie, I’m sending your guy out there.  He’s been working on the gravity drives and has a few experiments he needs to do outside the gravity well.  He should be there in two days.”

“He is not my guy!” Catie yelled.

“Well, nobody else will claim him,” Marc said.  “I think you’re stuck with him.”

“I’ve never even met him,” Catie said.

“Then it’s high time you do,” Marc said.  “He’ll be there in two days.  I’m sure you’ll be interested in the experiments.”

“Whatever,” Catie said, tired of fighting her father’s joke.

◆ ◆ ◆

That night, there was a huge party on both carriers as they cleared one of the flight bays on each one to make room for everyone to attend.  Catie and the other nine Odin’s Fist pilots were the guests of honor and had to make time to attend both parties.  There was a quiet memorial at the beginning to remember the pilots who had lost their lives, but once they had been given a respectful moment of silence, everyone was ready to let their hair down and kick up their heels.

By the end of the evening, Catie couldn’t remember how many times she had danced, or how many drinks she had had.  She was so exhausted, both physically and emotionally, that she actually slept for seventeen hours straight.

“Hey, Sleepyhead,” Liz said when Catie finally emerged from her bed.

“You should get up and get dressed, your guy’s going to be here in two hours.”

“He is not my guy!”

“I know that; you know that, but does anyone else know?” Liz asked.

“They would if you and Daddy would quit calling him my guy.”

“I’m sure your father will take that into consideration.”

“UHHH!” Catie screamed as she headed to the shower.

Chapter 31

Oops!

“Hello, I’m Jonathan McDowell,” Catie’s guy said, introducing himself.  They were meeting in Liz’s ready room.

“Catie McCormack,” Catie said.  “I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Here are the experiments I want to run,” Dr. McDowell said.  “You know this would have gone a lot faster if you guys had given me a gravity drive to work with right away.”

“I’m sure it would have,” Catie said, “but we didn’t think we needed to be in a big hurry.  And the results from the scientists that replicated the technology with just an occasional hint from ADI were actually better than the original technology.”

“That’s interesting,” Dr. McDowell said.  “I hope I’ll also exceed expectations.  What do you think of these experiments?”

“They look pretty logical,” Catie said.  “I’m really not that familiar with the theory on gravimetric drives.”

“Oh, ADI implied you were an expert,” Dr. McDowell said.

“I did not,” ADI told Catie, “I just said that you were very insightful when it came to technology.”

“Well, I’m sure she was just being complimentary,” Catie said, “but what are your experiments trying to prove?”

“I’m not necessarily trying to prove anything yet; I’m just trying to see what happens when you vary the parameters associated with the drive.  Basically, I want to get a better characterization of how it responds as you vary the parameters.  I’m hoping to improve their efficiency as well as increase the multiplier.”

“Increase the multiplier?”

“Yes, even with four-hundred thousand to one, you have to be within fifty AU of our sun to have enough gravity to overcome the losses in the drive.  If I increase the multiplier, then you’ll be able to accelerate faster at a greater distance.  If I increase the efficiency, then you’ll be able to start accelerating at a greater distance, and as you know, just a small amount of constant acceleration eventually gets you moving fast.”

“That makes sense.  So you have this assembly with four gravity drives in it, and you’re going to vary the harmonics and power levels to see how the drive efficiency and multiplier vary.”

“That’s basically it,” Dr. McDowell said.  “Can we go out tomorrow to do the test?”

“Of course,” Catie said.  “We have the Oryx that you came in with the drive package in it and all your instruments.  I’ll fly you to where you want to go, and you can run the experiments.  It looks like it will take about six hours, then I’ll just fly us straight back to Delphi Station.”

“That would be great.  Once I have the results, I want to get back to my lab as soon as possible.”

◆ ◆ ◆

The next day Catie was reading through the data on the survey of the Paraxean asteroid while Dr. McDowell ran his experiments.  She had flown him out to 50 AUs from the sun and helped him push his test package out of the Oryx.  Then she’d positioned the Oryx five thousand kilometers from the package so he could run his experiments with minimum interference from the electronics on the Oryx or its mass.

She was barely registering his comments as he ran the various experiments.  Occasionally she’d look up to see what had happened with the drive package after he commented about starting one of the tests.  Sometimes the test unit developed an acceleration, and sometimes it was just sitting dead still.

“Damn, that didn’t do anything,” Dr. McDowell said.  “I would have expected at least a power spike, but nothing.”

Catie looked up and checked the sensor reading for the drive package.  It registered all zeros as if the package wasn’t there.  She turned to the optical scan display and saw nothing.  She ran the video backward until she could see the package sitting there, then she ran it forward.  When Jonathan sent the signal to start the experiment, there was a small flash of light, then the package disappeared.

“I don’t understand this,” Dr. McDowell said.  “I’m not getting any reading from the package at all.  Did the instruments fail?”

“It’s not there,” Catie said.

“Of course it’s there,” Dr. McDowell said.  “Did it move?”

“No, it disappeared.”

“Come on, you’re not paying attention; it must have moved beyond our sensor range,” Jonathan said.  “But I’m surprised it moved at all; I didn’t see any change in the power reading.”

“Look, it’s not there,” Catie said.

“I said it must have moved!”

“Watch the video!”

Catie rewound the video to just before the last test began, then she played it at slow speed.  The video showed the drive package overlaid with all the sensor readings.  When the sensor showed Jonathan applying the harmonics to the drive, there was a brief reading showing the drives powering up, then the reading dropped to zero, and the package disappeared.

“Oops, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Dr. McDowell said.  “Did it blow up?”

“No, the sensors don’t show any power spikes,” Catie said.  “They show you energizing the engines, applying the harmonics, then all the readings drop to zero, and the drive package disappears.”

“I wonder where it went?”

“I think we need to rethink these experiments,” Catie said.  “We definitely need to figure out where it went.”

“Damn, that harmonic setting definitely doesn’t do what I expected,” Dr. McDowell said.

Afterword

Thanks for reading Delphi Alliance!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the fifth book in the Delphi in Space series.  If you would like to join my newsletter group, click here, Delphi in Space News.   The newsletter provides interesting science facts for SciFi fans, book recommendations based on books I truly loved reading, and notification of when the next book in my series is available.

As a self-published author, the one thing you can do that will help me the most is to leave a review and / or follow me on BookBub, Goodreads, or Amazon.

The story will continue in Delphi Federation Spring 2020.

﻿Acknowledgments

It is impossible to say how much I am indebted to my beta readers and copy editors.  Without them, you would not be able to read my books due to all the grammar and spelling errors.  I have always subscribed to Andrew Jackson’s opinion that “It is a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word.”

So special thanks to:

My copy editor Ann Clark, who also happens to be my wife.

My beta reader and editor, Theresa Holmes.

My beta reader and cheerleader, Roger Blanton, who happens to be my brother.

OTHER BOOKS BY Bob Blanton

Delphi in Space

Sakira

Delphi City

Delphi Station

Delphi Nation

Delphi Alliance

Delphi Federation

Delphi Exploration

Delphi Colony

Delphi League

Delphi Embassy

Delphi Diversion

Delphi Forge -- coming soon

Matthew and the Stone

Matthew and the Stone

Stone Ranger

Stone Undercover

Stone Detective