Chapter 39

The shields of the pursuing ships glowed brightly. The turbulence slowed the pursuit down and more antimatter was sprayed out. The flight of missiles coming from the pursuers were damaged or deflected. Missiles pursued them for days but the Aristis ships did not.

Thirty eight days after Craig had arrived at Cralto we received some of our own visitors. We were fortunate that they came a roundabout way that happened to be monitored. The Fonduush was three light years away but it accelerated to its maximum speed.

Pop was in command and he had only thirty crew to assist him. Walt, being a 62, was far more efficient than the old damaged 72.

We sent units in a complimentary vector in case the Aristis were trying to draw us off. They were the masters of warfare and knew all the tricks if they bothered to employ them. This would be a test to see how well protected we were. It could also be a full attack designed to look like a test.

Parts of the aluminium ships had been made but it would be months before we had all the parts, never mind the completed ship. The Fonduush was our strongest unit. It had been modified to put many more launchers that faced forward or to the stern.

Twenty three ships faced the Fonduush a day and a half later. One Aristis ship that monitored this action stayed well to the rear. Her mission was to see how well we fought. The Fonduush started firing off her missiles much sooner than the Aristis norm. The missiles did not rush off with the usual speed though. Seven thousand missiles were eventually fired by the time the Fonduush would normally have fired. The missiles now rushed forward as one group and some veered to the flanks where the ships would move to.

Our missiles all came on the targets at nearly the same time. The ships had a good defence but none of them were able to survive this type of attack. The Fonduush looked for survivors but they did not believe in escape pods. Ours did not have them either because nobody wanted to be captured by the Aristis.

Walt used Rontem's voice to challenge the ship and all the rest to come and try their luck. This is what he normally would have done if he was still in power.

Pop turned the ship around and started for the next probable place the Aristis would emerge from.

In the nest five weeks there were two more attacks. It was Wesley and I that figured out which was a feint and which was the real attack. We won but we did not always do this without losses. Cadets died along with their ships. The computers in our heads kept us focussed until after the battles.

Seven ships had been lost with a human, a Tomma and a computer entity dying in each. I could not strip the ships anymore and still have them able to defend us.

We cried and I admit that I did too. I could not make love to a woman and not love her. A romantic made a poor commander but some jobs just had to be done.

We had destroyed a hundred and thirty of their ships. All of us knew that they were finished testing us. The Aristis would now usually attack from a distance with missiles aimed at our world. This would not be from just one hemisphere but all around. Their objective was not to destroy our world but to tie up our ships so they could chew us up a bit at a time.

Garbo had not been destroyed but everything he reported we figured had to be aimed at disinformation. He was a valuable computer with no way of defending himself. They put him in a building with so much interference that he could not gather data. Any transmissions would then be worthless. They could destroy him too but he was potentially very valuable to them.

We were attached from a quarter we had not expected. High flying planes then air craft that looked like passenger planes overflew the island when they had not done so before. The island belonged to Malaysia but an American frigate launched three heavy troop helicopters that came to the island. They had no business here but our drones soon found out that a satellite had seen our building and the ship had come to investigate in strength.

This had been discussed at length and we turned our outermost shield on so that there was an opaque dome over the entire island. The helicopters could land on top but they could not get through. The helicopters went back and the dome was shutdown. Rockets were fired from the warship but did not penetrate the newly raised shields.

Later the dome went up again as jets came and fired heaver missiles or dropped bombs. Little noise got through and even less when we put up two shields. Everybody was worried. It was not because the screen may go down but because we had entered a new phase in our dealings with regular humans.

The company that had bought the island was kept completely separate from our other ones, even those that were still hidden. Within a week the screen was not able to be released. The Americans were having target practice. In a rare form of fair play, the other nations were invited to try their luck.

By now we had infiltrated all of the military computers possible. The ones kept offline were more difficult but not much. A single American plane, reminiscent of Hiroshima, fired a missile. We were shadowing the plane invisibly and as soon as the engines ignited and it dropped, it was captured. It had not had chance to arm itself before we shut it down.

Irene took the missile and dropped it on the White House lawn. The missile was designed to not detonate even if it fell for kilometres. It was only a hundred metre fall and the nose dug into the grass. The time that elapsed was four minutes.

During the next week cruise missiles came and they were similarly dispose of. We caused the charges in the bombs to detonate unevenly. The radioactive material spread thirty metres in all directions on the military base that fired the missile. The Russians and the Chinese tried too with similar success. We could not do more just yet because the Aristis were coming.

We nearly evacuated the base. The Aristis, all our children and I were all that remained. The Aristis and the children were no good in battle and I stayed behind to coordinate with Wesley.

Betts, Erica and Connie were proud to have ships that would be fighting. I could not keep them with me especially when so many others would die.

Small antimissiles flew out from their pods two light-years from Sol. They were intelligent and waited for their targets to come to them. They did not have to move too fast. They had antimatter charges but the power was directed into the forth and fifth dimension. Very few missiles made it through. Ships though came after.

All told, there were three hundred and ten of them. The antimissiles got three of these but they were designed to take out missiles. Our own ring of missiles near the orbit of Saturn hit the ships from the front as another wave joined up to hit that came from further in. Both waves tried to hit together.

The Aristis formation broke up and the cadets and our simple aluminium ships worked to take on smaller groups and swamp their defences. Fonduush was on the other side of the system taking care of a smaller group of attackers.

The Stamich had two sister ships. Two fought with the Fonduush while the third fought with the cadets. It was our missile pods that I think saved us. We simply put many more missiles in space for the Aristis defences to deal with. Some of it was simple antimatter thrown out like a shotgun blast on a ballistic flight.

The Aristis in the base fed the kids as I fought with my mind. Cadets died as did their ships but some clung to life. Connie's ship was hit the first day but she was still alive. I made sure they had an armoured suit now even if they were captured. Mthvarisa was with her but she did not make it even with the suit I forced her to wear.

What broke the final attack was how we threw regular matter at the flank of forty two ships along with some of our antimatter. They did not know what to destroy and had to break their charge as our missiles closed in from the other flank. Fonduush came in now like an avenging angel and spewed the rest of her missiles.

The battle had gone on for three days. It had come near the earth and the moon had taken a hit. One dead Aristis missile travelling near the speed of light struck the edge of our atmosphere and destroyed itself. This caused a giant burst of energy that fried just about everything electrical on that side of the earth.

I hurt inside like never before. Connie had been picked up only to die when a missile got through the rescuing ship's walls. Betts' ship was destroyed when she had to ram an Aristis ship to destroy it when she ran out of missiles. She had survived the battle but drifted in space for almost two days.

We searched for our people. They were easy to find if they were alive. There were very few intact bodies. All of our people were picked up before a day was up after the battle was finished. There were a hundred and twenty-seven surviving cadets and sixty-six Tomma. The Aristis fleet had a few survivors too but none chose to become a prisoner.

The Fonduush was heavily damaged. All our major vessels had suffered losses but made it through. It would be a long time before Fonduush was ready to fight again.

Erica came to me with her fairly functional ship and just cried on me. So much of our expanded family had died. Bert, and Lillian had died on the Fonduush when it took three direct hits. Erin was lost with her ship and crew. Leslie was barely staying together until I got her to stay with all the children.

Erica and I did not stay long. The school was under attack. Our shield at the school was holding even though it was never strong. There was one lone helicopter but it was having electrical problems. North America was hit hard by the charged ions from the upper atmosphere.

Erica said when we got to the school, "What are we going to do Captain?"

Captain? She had to be worried a lot. "They have nothing that can hurt us. Fly the perimeter. If they do not move back do it above mach one."

Erica was the pilot. Though it was near dusk our craft was still easy to see. A few bullets came our way but as they increased, Erica went supersonic at three metres above the ground. One additional pass around brought no response.

The computer in the school shutdown a portion of the shield so we could enter then it went back up. We flew much slower around the school buildings and the dormitories until we landed in a central location.

We left the ship with Zelenka. We wore no armour and I could not feel any thoughts of anger directed at us. The students came out first but the teachers tried to hold them back. Our ship was the same as they had seen on the movies we made and the side said Star Fleet prominently.

The first to reach us were the youngest. They showed no fear, or sense, for that matter. Erica was so overcome that she hugged them to her and began to cry. It took fifteen minutes but the rest came out too.

Since they all had communicators in their skulls, I got them lined up as if in parade form and said verbally, "We have been in a bitter fight with a people very much like us. The secret of our existence is out now but there are a lot more to know. First of all, you all were fitted with a communicator but it has never been turned on. It is like a cell phone. I will talk to you now with the communicator. Usually the students get a bit longer to get used to the idea but we are pressed for time."

"We are Star Fleet and I do not care if a movie company used the name first." I paused and watched faces. Only a few were calm enough to understand that I had not used my voice. "We have used the school to gather people that could help us defend earth. Many of your friends have helped us and some are now dead."

This seemed to shock most. "Connie Lime was my lover and the mother of two of my children. She died defending us. My adoptive parents died on the Fonduush, the ship you thought fictional. Erin was flying a ship much like the one behind me when she died with her crew. There are many more stories to tell but I am not up to mentioning them now. I have to mourn but I have to work.

"Star Fleet is just the same way we portrayed it in our movies. It is not really as glamorous as that on the surface. Underneath you will find that it is a lot more than we could tell the public. In coming years Star Fleet is going to be very difficult to enter. We are the only way humanity will gain the stars. All of you will get a chance to join. There is so much work to do that this has to happen. We have lots of ships to build and rebuild.

"The world around us is in shambles by one small missile travelling near the speed of light that just nicked our atmosphere. Think what that missile would have done if it hit the earth." They were given a chance to think but they could not imagine the consequences.

"We cannot do much to help the world at the moment except give them electrical power to rebuild. The fighting outside the walls will subside in time. Behind me is Zelenka. She was not born on Earth but her people came here long ago. We are an offshoot of her race. She and a hundred and two others have fought to save us. Forty percent of them have given up their lives to save yours. There are a few more persons I want you to meet but you have talked to them already without knowing who they really were. Your mentors were actually living entities residing within larger computers. Only a few of those intelligences are actually artificial. They can talk to you the same way I am now. I want Matt to talk to you first but I want you to go to bed and he will talk for a few moments. Tomorrow you can continue with the rest of my computer family."

When I stopped talking, Matt took over. He got the students and teachers off to bed while we went back in the ship to do the same. I had been kept artificially awake for too long and so had the rest of us.

I slept for fourteen hours and forced myself to get up. There was nobody around the ship because their real education had just started. I got the girls up and we left on foot with the hatch open. There would be tours through it for a while.

The school was damaged because we used the same wiring as the rest of the world. We had electrical power at the reactor though the electrical grid outside was down. Lighting and television were fried so there would be a population explosion in nine months. We had to prepare for that and for a lot of other events too.

Getting electricians, wire or replacement fixtures and lighting would be impossible. There were devices that used other types of energy to do the same tasks. Making these devices may be a way of putting off some of the grieving until it could be handled in small chunks.

A few students were studying the ship. There were no visible controls but they had been told about how the computer took directions from the pilot. We got them off and flew back to our island to begin this needed work. The students could finish exploring our ship later.

Betts, Patricia, Liza and Paul were not back yet. They were dealing with their grief the same way I was by working. Some of the people had rotated though the island. I consoled as I was consoled. I saw that none of the Aristis had been ostracised and they had dived in to help as much as they could. Facing my children and telling them that their mother would not going to be coming home again had been difficult. They knew in their minds that their parent was dead but they still came to see when a ship landed.

For the next few days I made crystals that would emit visible light when in the presence of an energy field. Making them so they would turn off was just too much work now. Erica and Zelenka took the containment vessel and our smaller antimatter reactor to the school. It was set up in the fusion building with Helium reactor because of its protective shield.

Matt sent probes out to those in charge of the power grid. Their telephones were still dead but the probes induced a current into the phone wires. We wanted this to sound as mundane as possible. Having similar drones broadcasting sound would be worse especially if they could not be seen.

One phone rang and I watched the man hurry to it with a smile. "Hello."

"Hi, I'm sorry to say that the phones are not up yet. I am using other means to carry my voice to you."

"Who is this?"

"Wally Kiefer."

"Young man there is work to be done and you are not helping."

News had not reached him yet about the school and he didn't seem to recognise my name though it was in the papers a lot. "If you will take a moment you should remember that our school produced the fusion power reactor that you use."

"Sorry, its hectic around here. I remember your name now."

"You will be the first to officially learn that the cadets from our school in Dunnville went out to meet the Aristis that were invading."

"What! You!"

"That is true. It was a near miss from a deactivated Aristis missile that caused all the damage to our world."

The man was allowed time to digest this and it was actually a few minutes until I heard. "What are you suggesting now?"

"Our fusion reactor is still online. You can take power from this unit still though the high voltage lines are burnt out. We also have a small reactor capable of putting out 325 megawatts of power. We have a system of beam power that can send the energy to Toronto where it is induced into your existing power lines."

"That's impossible."

"Look out the window to your right please."

There was an even longer pause and I had to call the ship away or the wait would be longer. Eventually I heard, "Was that a real space ship?"

"It was one of the units that went out to fight for us. Are you ready to take my statements as fact, at least for the moment?"

"I can. The lines are down in Toronto too."

"My suggestion is to pick some of the substations and isolate them from the main grid. I can then feed those stations from here, up to my capacity. You do not have to worry about phasing, multiple phasing or voltage. The units you have to install only weigh seventy kilograms. They must be spliced into the existing lines."

A conference call started with the engineers that were currently pulling their hair out with their work load. In the end I sent Erica and Zelenka to them to drop off three sample units. They would provide up to fifty megawatts each to the grid. They were warned that all our property was monitored and if the military seized any of this then they would self-destruct. That was actually the truth but the explosion was designed to just destroy the crystals.

The 220 megawatt fusion reactor now provided a ten thousand watts of power for out lights. This was the same as what a ten toasters drew. Wesley and I were making all kinds of devices that were needed for our own purposes.

The Americans, Russians, Chinese and the Malays had ships stationed near the island. They now shot out flares. This area of the world had not been as hurt by the surge of power through the air. I had the drones work their way into the hardened phone systems that were aboard warships.

I made a form of conference call. Everything that was spoken was translated into their own language so everybody understood everybody else. They may be a little shocked to find the communication through their ship phones and not the radio.

The phones rang and were answered. I said, "Hello gentlemen. This is Wally Kiefer. What can I do for you?"

There was a lot of speech all at the same time about their secure lines but eventually they quieted down only to demand that they talk to me privately.

Matt took over and gave the official account of the way the Aristis had originally come to earth years ago. It must have been an hour later that he finished the history lesson up to the present time.

They wanted to know who Matt was and he calmly said, "I am an artificial intelligence that Wally Kiefer has made. Actually I have a roommate by the name of Hal that is named after the character in one of your old movies. This one is quite sane though."

Matt seemed to enjoy what he was doing. We claimed this island as a portion of our own country. There was a lot of comments about that, especially from the Malaysian navy. Our school was claimed next but there were no Canadians around to protest. Their one and only war canoe had been damaged by hungry beavers a few years ago. The government had not got around to rebuilding their navy yet because of the exorbitant cost of birch bark and balsam gum.

Paul and his two remaining girls came home. They were exhausted like I was and I knew how they felt. Erin was the youngest but that meant nothing after they got to know each other. They cried on me and I cried too. Paul had lost his new foster parents and I reminded him that he still had a brother and sisters as well as other people that loved him. Patricia and Liza were the same way. They held Paul and each other and this helped.

The world slowly started to rebuild and we did too. We had the funerals though there was usually nothing even to cremate. The Tomma and the Aristis were a lot more logical than humans were about this. The Tomma had their All Mother that looked out for them without much ceremony, only a eulogy. The Aristis had dropped superstitions as they matured. Making life from scratch tended to do that to races I heard.

We did our share to help the humans. We built 20 antimatter reactors, of 1.4 Gigawatts each. They were placed across all of North America. This generosity did not call away the warships stationed near the island or the armies near the school. They did not shoot at us anymore but some had itchy trigger fingers.

The official explanation of our existence went out but there were few people to hear it in North America, South America and Europe though the latter was not hit as hard.

Road transportation was hurt too because of the computers, sensors and wiring was damaged in the vehicles. The trains had begun to move and they satisfied most of the transportation needs.

World banking had been ultra fucked. Wesley had a snapshot of the banking just before the blackout. We helped where we could but we did not let them know how deep into their economy we could go. It would take years before this industry could get out of the difficulties it was in.

The students were all inducted into Star Fleet in a flamboyant ceremony on the Fonduush's flight deck. This made those that saw us even from a distance sit up an notice. We had warned the militaries of our intention a week ahead of time. There were no missiles fired because I said what would happen.

The Fonduush was still not whole. The scars could be seen and even the open wounds. She still looked majestic. She was a lady that had been through a serious fight and looked it. I was actually happy to let humans see her for the first time other than in a movie.

The students were not all children and they acted that way after the ceremony. They hurried around to see what had been shown them in their minds. The Tomma saw most of them as children and endeavoured to present the ship as a home to them. We celebrated later by working on the repairs.

Betts finally came back. She was exhausted and that was what she wanted. We took her home and cried about our loses among our children and especially those to those that had died. We got her to sleep but stayed with her just in case.

When Betts woke up she still had the pained look. I said, "We have to get ready Betts. In a few years the Aristis will be back with an even larger force."

"We just killed them."

"We killed no more than three thousand males. If they have to, they will make biological soldiers and turn them loose on us. We have to go there now and stop them."

Betts accessed the computers and said, "Yes, I guess we have to. Their system is defended much better than ours was."

"We will have to make missiles guided by good computers. We flood the system but I suspect that they know this and are looking for another place to set up shop."

After another query she said, "There are lots of places though all of them are artificial. They will work even harder if we are able to deny these locations to them."

"I'm worried that they will use a lot more Tomma instead of the Aristis."

"The Tomma are still loyal to King Rontem. Why not let the people on Cralto know that their king does not support this war?"

"They will get captured in time and then they will be forced to say just how few of us there are. By now we could have the entire population of earth helping us."

"Get them to come back and attack again. They are at a disadvantage then."

"They won't come again until they have enough ships and crews to fill them. Our most important assets are the Fonduush and our ability to make good quality crystals. They have the people and the resources to build lots of ships."

"Can we get the humans to help? They made the automated ships."

"It has to be done in the east. The west was hurt too much. They will want to get paid for their work. The money from this side of the earth is not as valuable as it was. Our money was in investments and cash. The cash is lost in cyberspace until the banking system gets back up and even if we had the paper, they would not think much of it. The western countries are spending a lot of money now buying electrical components. The value of all the currencies is dropping."

"Pay with land or businesses."

"We can do some of that but they will hold out for our technology even if it means the Aristis will defeat us."

"Do you have a solution?"

"A partial one. We fly to the scrap metal yards and gather the aluminium and other metals to alloy it with. We can supply the power to have it refined here and then get it machined. I want smaller ships with stronger shields. The Aristis did not go into combat suits big time but we have to. We have to be like the Spartans. Each of us has to be able to defeat thirteen of our enemies."

We negotiated to get aluminium scrap turned into ship parts and found that scrap prices shot up overnight. There were a lot of fools over here too. Argentina was less avarice and got the use of an additional reactor as payment.

Combat suits had been used a lot over the years but now we gave the job of making two improved types to Wesley. He used robots built in the shape of people for the tests. I wanted the armour to protect us from many more of the Aristis small arms as well as some crew served weapons. The other suit had to be much lighter and intended for commando operations.

There were a lot of tradeoffs in both suits as there were in building anything. The first suit needed a small strong shield. This was a oxymoron. To get the strength we had to build large. Large would drain the accumulators quickly and the beam power could be interrupted. This meant larger accumulators or reactors. Reactors had the most promise but now we had to beef up the augmentation the suit had to have to move. This meant a bigger suit and a larger surface to protect and thus more power needed. Moving the suit quickly from one location to another was a problem in itself.

Weapons had to be heavy too. The Aristis variety were very powerful. There were no human equivalents. Most used energy one way or another. Kinetic weapons were akin to rail guns. There had to be a lot of power and a large inertial stabiliser. Our suit could not stand up to this weapon.

Biological warfare was frowned on but used when needed. The Aristis and humans were just too close to the Tomma for me to try this. We did not have the expertise to do this either. In time we might but I shied away from this method.

Gas and chemical attacks were well known too but again when they were needed. We did have the formulas for these weapons and I was prepared to use them, especially those that were non-lethal. The dart gun came to mind and some drugs worked just as fast on those as they did on humans.

What this type of suit would actually be is a one person space ship. Preliminary studies placed it over three metres high and weighted three and a half tonnes. It had integral rail guns as well as a gun that shot small hypervelocity missiles. The back of the left hand would have the multiple barrels of a dart gun. The right had small cartridges of gas designed to put the Aristis out for hours. It also had a grenade launcher using antimatter but of course this was not designed for close in work. We had even found a way to get the charge down to the equivalent of ten tonnes of TNT. This was quite an achievement in itself.

We put a lot of thought into the two types of suits. They worked well but had strengths and weaknesses that lent them to certain missions. The same way a tank division and infantry worked. Tanks could not traverse an uncleared jungle and the infantry was at a disadvantage when crossing cleared land.

We needed the simpler form of the combat suits that were designed for stealth not massive amounts of strength. It gave invisibility and some protection from kinetic weapons. The latter would also be good on a ship as a portable escape pod or to repel borders but it was actually too big for this if it ever happened.