Chapter 18

Órarduine date – 7^th year, 10^th month, 40^th clock cycle

The eight Órarduine cruisers were nearly 2 hours from Mars when the chime sounded in Siobhan’s Clans compartment. It took several rings of the chime before the group began stirring. Sensing their awakening the ships AI said, “Our ETA for An Clochán is approaching 2 hours.”

“Thank you,” replied Eileen.

“I sure could have slept longer,” said Melissa.

“Me too,” added Anna as everyone began to rise.

“Okay,” said Siobhan, “as soon as we freshen up lets go up to the bridge. I am sure Anna and Mark will want to see our approach to An Clochán.” Both nodded their agreement with a big smile.

They took only a few moments to freshen up. When they were finished, Tiff handed Anna and Mark a Salwar Kameez style jacket and pants. “Try these on. They should fit you, based on the measurements the AI obtained during your physical assessment.”

“These are beautiful,” said Anna as her fingers slid over the fabric. She quickly slipped into the pants and then Tiff held the jacket for her to slip her arms into the sleeves. As Anna fastened the front she added, “I have never felt anything so light and soft. Oops. I didn’t put anything on underneath.”

“We don’t usually wear anything underneath,” replied Tiff, “so we didn’t think to have something made for you. The AI can make underwear like you were wearing, but it will be very noticeable. Actually, it would probably be more noticeable than going without.”

Anna looked over at Mark to see that he was already dressed, and then looked at their reflections in the mirror. “This is fine. It may take a little getting used to. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I had the same reaction the first time I wore them,” said Aisling. “It is difficult to tell the difference between being nude and wearing those. All of us like them, but we feel more comfortable without a covering.”

“Mark, what do you think?”

“Anna, mine feels very comfortable. You look fantastic.”

“Thanks. You look very good as well. Okay, we’re ready,” replied Anna turning toward Siobhan’s Clan.

They had just started toward the bridge when they heard an oscillating wail. Anna and Mark looked shocked as everyone but May just vanished from the corridor.

“That alarm is calling us to battle stations,” said May, “follow me.” She began to run holding Anna’s hand, almost pulling her along. Mark followed them down the corridor. In just a few moments they entered the bridge to see Siobhan’s Clan already sitting in front of their consoles. Their seats looked much like those you would see in a fighter, complete with a full harness.

May said, “Anna, sit here and fasten the harness. Mark, sit there.” She assisted both of them in fastening their harnesses and then quickly took the seat at her console nearby. Siobhan, Conan and Eileen sat next to each other in the center of the group with a set of 9 large monitors in front of them. The two Russians looked at the different monitors trying to figure out what they represented. They were sitting just behind May and Siobhan.

“Shields at 100%,” said Siobhan.

“Confirmed.”

“Weapons?” said Conan.

“60 seconds to full charge.”

Sarah’s voice came over the speaker. “Dispersal plan B. Prepare to initiate dispersal. Three incoming bogies at 2 2 0. Projected intercept in 7 minutes. Incoming bogies signature matches Durale or Iridien Spec Ops cruisers. No IFF. Presuming Durale.”

As they listened to the chatter, Anna and Mark talked softly to each other while they tried to understand the significance of the information on the screens. Two central screens were obvious in that they showed the position of the other seven cruisers with respect to them. Another gave a 3D view showing them the bogies, all the Órarduine ships, and Mars, along with their relative positions. Another showed a diagram of their ship.

Siobhan said, “Donna, bring Phoenix to readiness level 2.”

“Phoenix at readiness level 2. Shields up. FCS all manned. Threat assessment in progress. Launching all Star Fighters.”

“Phoenix Security, scan for other anomalies.”

“Summon the designated Security team to the bridge.”

“Contingency plan is being executed,” replied Donna, Phoenix’s AI.

While Siobhan was working with Donna on Phoenix, the other Command Staffs were in contact with the Master AIs on their ships. Amy raised the readiness level at An Clochán to 3.

Anna and Mark didn’t know where to look as there was so much happening. They did gasp when they saw Brigit appear to stand next to Siobhan. Siobhan said, “Brigit, we thought you would have been here sooner. We are really glad to see you.”

“We were involved in something else and it took us a bit to get free. If there are only three Durale ships, then this intercept is crazy.”

“Agreed, but not if they scattered mines opposite from their approach,” said Conan. “That is the only thing that makes sense with the position of the incoming bogies.”

“Priority Override! Cancel dispersal!” exclaimed Siobhan. “Situation analysis confirms Conan’s assessment. High probability of mines on this approach to Mars, dead ahead and to port.”

“We just reached the same conclusion,” came several replies.

“Reducing speed,” said Amy in the lead cruiser. “Shift to tight cubic formation then link scanners.”

“Good move,” said Brigit. Sensing that Anna and Mark didn’t grasp the significance she stepped over to them. “Hi, I’m Brigit. By reducing speed and moving to a cubic formation, we are doing two things. Slowing down will reduce the effectiveness of the mines. Forming a cubic formation and linking the scanners of the eight cruisers increases the sensitivity of the scans. This should let us detect the mines much quicker and more accurately. It gives us the ability for high resolution scans in all directions. The downside is that it makes us more vulnerable to attack.”

“How did he know about the mines?”

“It is a standard method of forcing your prey to move only in certain directions and improving your effectiveness.”

Sarah said, “Have IFF signal for Iridien Spec Ops cruisers near AW fleet. Still no IFF on bogies.”

“Iridien fleet has gone to battle stations.”

Eileen said, “Three bogies at 8-8-4. In range in 4 minutes.”

Keriann said, “Three more at 4-4-2. In range in 5 minutes.”

Erica said, “Scanner showing a mine field at 11-11-2 moving left to right. Range too close for evasive course change. Bogie range now approaching laser limit. Targets being assigned to cruiser positions L1, L2, L3 and L4. Positions L5, L6, L7 and L8 rotate and acquire targets.” As Erica was speaking the monitors began showing the mines in front and to their left.

Siobhan glanced at Anna and Mark and said, “Brace yourselves. We don’t know how big the shock wave will be.”

“Lasers locked and loaded. Fire on my mark. 3... 2... 1 ... mark.”

On the monitor, 32 flashes of green light moved away from the eight cruisers. A few moments later the targets took on a reddish glow that rapidly turned into a bright flash as some 30 mines exploded. These were immediately followed by additional explosive flashes around them as these explosions detonated other mines. The monitor showed a pressure wave of gas moving toward them from the exploding mines. When the pressure wave passed over them it caused all the cruisers to shudder. As the flashes dissipated, glowing objects could be seen spewing in all directions from where the mines had exploded. The mine fragments continued to cause other mines to explode.

Sarah said, “All cruisers resume defensive orientation.” On the screen the images of the ships rotated so that all the ships were again facing away from the center of the cube. They could see many glowing fragments from the mines hurling toward their position.

“Setting defensive array to drift up at 10 m/s.”

Rusty said, “Let’s engage the bogies as soon as they come into range.”

It was now very quiet as they watched the monitor showing the three groups of Durale ships continue their approach.

Eileen said, “Lasers armed. Locked on middle at 4-4-2 group. Fire when ready.”

On the speaker, similar commands were heard coming from the other ships. In what seemed like hours but was only a few seconds, the monitors showed green lines flashing toward the incoming Durale ships. When a laser beam hit one of them it turned green, momentarily showing its shape. The Durale ships continued coming. Another round of laser shots were fired at the Durale ships, this time they fluoresced green for a longer time.

Anna and Mark gave a short gasp when they saw the screen lit up with multiple identifiers. They slowly began to breathe again as they realized that they were Órarduine Star Fighters. The Durale began firing at the Órarduine Cruisers. Then more ships were shown on the monitors approaching the Durale ships. These were identified with Iridien Spec Ops markers.

“Incoming mine fragments,” said Keira.

The ship shuddered as the fragments’ energy was absorbed by the shield. The shuddering continued for some time as the shield was pelted by numerous mine fragments. On the monitor showing their ship was a representation of the shield’s envelope around it. Keira, Anna and Mark watched as the shield envelope gave like a rubber ball when the hot high energy mine fragments struck. The energy from the fragments was absorbed, turning them into debris. Other fragments glanced off the shield away from the ship. Each time a fragment hit, the shield’s energy level fluctuated.

Then alarms began sounding. Aisling said, “Shields at 80% and dropping rapidly. Three large high energy mine fragments incoming.” She had hardly finished when the ship shuddered again.

Conan said, “Hold laser fire. Shift maximum power to shields.”

“Incoming, twelve large fragments.”

A group of three fragments hit in rapid succession, tearing a momentary hole in the weakened shield. Before the shield could reestablish a fourth fragment hit the side of the cruiser. Then three more hit the cruiser, each one causing the ship to shudder. The shield reformed just as an alarm sounded. The damage control monitor began flashing showing a hull breach along with the coordinates. In the image of the cruiser, the breached areas turned red, shifting to yellow a few moments later. A text message scrolled across the bottom saying that the compartments were sealed with only a loss in atmosphere.

Both Anna and Mark gripped each other’s hands tightly and began to breathe again. Neither realized they had been holding their breath.

On the monitor showing ship positions, there were five bright flashes. When the screen image stabilized five of the Durale ships were gone. Three Star Fighters were flashing yellow and two others were flashing red. There were four Durale ships left. Iridien cruisers were drawing the attention of the Durale ships while giving the Órarduine cruisers a clear shot. Several flights of Star Fighters were approaching the Durale ships from the rear. An Iridien cruiser and several Star Fighters fired simultaneously at a Durale ship, it disintegrated. Using sequenced fire, the Iridien and Órarduine cruisers, along with the Star Fighters, quickly turned the remaining three Durale ships into space dust.

“Órarduine, we need medics,” said Kelly. “Our status board shows six Star Fighters in a yellow state and two as red.”

“Medics are almost there,” said Muiriol the AI on Iarracht. “Rescue teams are right behind them. Salvage teams are not far behind.”

“Iridiens,” said Terry, “who is leading your group?”

“This is Antopolis. The answer is no one. This is a free for all. Why?”

“Do you have a secret for detecting these mines? Our method works but it is tedious.”

“The ones they used disintegrate after a set time period. Our data indicates that they were set up as thin cylindrical cloud to drift across your flight path with the face at a 45 degree angle to your path. Suggest you turn immediately right 90 degrees from original flight path and move 10,000 km before turning back to Mars. This should take you well clear of the mines and any fragments. A couple of our cruisers will lead the way. If we find any, we will try our disable code to see if it works.”

Rusty said, “Let’s put a couple of spiders on one and see what we can learn. The spiders should be well below their sensitivity threshold.”

“Suits us. We’ll advise you when we have the coordinates for one.”

Looking over at Anna and Mark, Keira said, “How are you guys doing?”

“Other than being on the edge of a nervous breakdown, okay,” replied Anna with a smile.

“Who attacked us?” said Mark.

“They were Durale. They are a group of renegades who are attempting to take over the Dutsuz World. They see us as being key to that effort. This will be the third time they have attacked us.”

“We haven’t seen anything in the news about them. However, we haven’t seen very much news since we were at the boarding school.”

“In a nut shell, the Durale had plans to capture us in the belief that they could transfer our technology and psionic abilities to themselves. With our abilities, they felt they would have the additional resources needed to take control of the Dutsuz World. The Durale are an ethnic group in the Dutsuz world. Initially, they sent two ships here pretending to be the Dutsuz delegation to the Alliance of Worlds fleet. In our second meeting with the Alliance of Worlds, the Durale attempted to drug Sarah’s Clan while they were on the Iridien flagship. At the same time, they tried to start a mutiny on the two Iridien ships. They failed, but it claimed the lives of quite a few Iridien, and the Durale on the flagship, before it was suppressed. Next, the Durale sent a group to Mars in an effort to plant their mind control drug in our food system at An Clochán. They failed again and were punished. Now it looks like they tried again.”

“Wow. Is everyone okay?”

“Pretty much. Several Star Fighter pilots were injured. Some injuries are pretty serious, but they will be fine after a couple of weeks in the medical center. All of our cruisers have some significant damage and there are some injuries among our crews.”

“I didn’t realize there was anyone else on the ship.”

“There are 40 Órarduine in our crew, including us.”

“They are about equally divided between biologicals and bots,” said Casidhe. “I bet you can’t tell the difference.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Anna.

“Think so?”

“Definitely. You have to be a bot.”

“Why do you say that?” replied Casidhe with a surprised expression.

“If I held my breath as long as you did a while ago, I would keel over on the floor.”

“You’re right. Under some circumstances when I get excited or anxious I stop breathing. I don’t pass out, but it can really screw up some of my systems for a while.”

“Well, keeling over would screw mine up to.”

“You have a point,” was the reply as they laughed.

“I have a question. We thought you primarily communicated telepathically, but we heard a lot of verbal exchange between the different groups.”

“We do communicate telepathically. You didn’t hear us communicating with our ship, Phoenix, to initiate a response to the attack by the Durale. Well you may have heard part of it, as this ship’s AI was told to put everything she could on the speakers. She assigned a bot to focus on that detail. The idea was to give you a better understanding of what was taking place without distracting us from what we needed to do.”

“Thank you. Who is Brigit?”

“She is one of our mentors; they make their home with us. A group named “The Old Ones” sent them to visit us a long time ago. They have since chosen to work from among us.”

“You are lucky to have them.”

“Yes we are. It looks like we’re ready to continue our journey home. We can talk about the events after we get to An Clochán.”

“When you gave out the positions of the incoming ships, what did the numbers mean?”

“The numbers note the position using imaginary clock faces placed on the three axis of our ship or defensive array. One face is horizontal, with the ship sitting on the clock face with 12 pointed forward along the axis of the ship. The second one is vertical, and perpendicular to the first. The third is vertical and intersects the others on their 3 – 9 axes. The first number is the horizontal position; the second is up or down, front to back, and the third is above or below us to our side. So a 3-3-4 would be coming from slightly below directly starboard.”

“Thanks. It makes sense, but it will need some thought in order to grasp it.”

“Oh, it does. It took us a while.”

As the group of Órarduine cruisers made their way to An Clochán, the Iridien Spec Ops discovered teams from another six Durale cruisers in the process of planting bombs on the ships in Egulle’s task group. Before the Iridien Spec Ops moved to capture the Durale, they carefully tripped the intrusion alarm on each Durale cruiser. Three Durale were captured as they fled back to their ships. In the ensuing engagement, some Durale were able to board of their cruisers and flee. The Iridien cruisers fired laser shots as they chased them. Shortly after the chase began one Durale cruisers disintegrated then the other exploded. The Iridiens took this as an indication that the crew had not reset the intrusion alarm. The three Durale prisoners were taken to Egulle’s ship for interrogation.

When the Órarduine cruisers approached An Clochán, the cruiser carrying Siobhan’s Clan slipped out of formation. They flew slowly past the seven Dóchas class ships to give Anna and Mark their first close up look at them.