Gliese Chronicles: Thin Margin Ch. 03

Authors note: I have attempted to make this chapter capable of standing alone on its own merits. However, I strongly suggest you read the previous chapters in order to understand the characters and situation to gain maximum enjoyment. My thanks are again extended to Privates1stClass for his exceptional editorial skill and patience. Rachel

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The last communication with Admiral Prescott hadn't been as fruitful as I had hoped. I knew he was seeing the situation differently than Morgan and I were, but that posed another set of problems for us that we really didn't need. We had a lot to do and little time to do it in if all went well—when did that ever happen? Previously, I couldn't help but be uncomfortable having Morgan alone on the enemy vessel and knowing it was likely to happen again was something I tried not to dwell on.

I still hoped time was on our side—not so much from the perspective of the enemy if that was what they represented at this point, as from our own forces. I suspected the enemy had all the time they needed to determine a course of action and to react to what we might do. The real rub was with Admiral Prescott—he was the one who wanted to take advantage of what he saw as a strategic opportunity—apparently forgetting the enemy had been quite capable of defeating our ships in the past with virtual impunity—only Avenger had changed the situation by engaging them in such a way that they would turn away to avoid greater losses. We had been successful in halting their advancement into our planetary system, but it became apparent the situation was more complex as we had discovered evidence of human occupation. Our enemy was beginning to show us who they were for the first time.

I had tasked several members of the crew and two droids with reviewing the alien ship's logs, each using standard queries on portions of the logs. Morgan was busy working on the data Robb had downloaded from the computer hub in the cryo-unit compartment. I was considering several options in regard to the enemy vessel we had left behind when we left to join our fleet. If my hunch was right, it wouldn't be long before it sent a message to their fleet informing them we had downloaded their logs and other information. That is if it had been their intention to have us learn about them in this fashion in the first place.

Our attempts to communicate with their robots had been limited and I wondered if it had been intentional on their part. Zenn told me he had been able to understand the language the droids were using, suggesting they would have been able to respond to him if they had chosen to. To me, that offered a door into their world we could utilize to our advantage—and perhaps to theirs.

My thoughts were interrupted by Morgan's voice. "Captain, I think I understand what happened regarding the cryo compartment and what the specific symbols denote. Those cryo-units are little changed from what was used on New Horizon when our ancestors first came into this system and what we could use today. I've prepared a list of those crew members who are candidates for revival so we can ask them questions about what transpired if we can revive them. I hope we can use a time stamp to narrow the group down to one or two who were closest to the time when the entire human crew was put into the compartment. I have Zenn working on that now, though I expect the last to be put into the units were the top officers with command responsibilities."

A plethora of alternative scenarios played out in my mind. Can we do it safely? What if I'm reading this wrong and they are luring us into a trap? Do we have enough time to find the right people to revive and will the process work after so many years? We still didn't have an answer as exactly to what happened and without knowing that I needed to be cautious. Well, as cautious as time allowed. It was always a balance between being aggressive enough, but not overly aggressive.

"Captain, I think this approach makes the most sense, having only one or two of them to deal with would minimize our exposure while providing the information we need. Of course, that meant going back to the ship to begin the process of reviving them and the process may take about 24-standard hours to complete."

"Understood. Thank you, Commander, good work. You're feeling well aren't you?" I asked for obvious reasons.

"Yes, I'm fine. You'll be the first to know if I'm not," he smiled.

"Commander, I think it would be a good time for you to get some rest while I'm fresh. That way when I need to take a break you'll be ready."

"Agreed. Wake me if you need to."

I watched as he left the bridge, then turned my attention to my console to continue reading the enemy vessel's captain's log. I had been reading for about ten minutes when an entry caught my eye—numerous reports of sickness on all of our vessels. Medical staff is investigating. I quickly scanned the following entries, and as I did, my suspicions were largely confirmed—it had been a quick-acting agent of some sort that had stricken all of the ships at the same time. That certainly eliminated a chemical agent of some kind as the chances of having a chemical-based proximate cause on each vessel at the same time was so unlikely as to stretch credibility—unless it was sabotage using a timed-release system of some kind, something I considered extremely remote, not to mention the lack of a motive. Sabotage didn't make sense.

I was lost in thought as I went over additional possibilities—food contamination, viral disease, or another biologic agent of some form. None could be entirely eliminated at this point, and I quickly returned to the logs to find additional clues. I was distracted again by a chime from my console announcing an incoming message and looked at the screen—damn! Did the admiral ever sleep? This was the third message asking for an update in the last five hours. I grimaced as I sent a reply indicating we were still working on the problem. I guess he didn't feel we were under enough pressure as if his asking would get us to move faster. The thought crossed my mind he would make an excellent politician—ask for the impossible to make yourself look good and have someone to blame when it didn't go well or failed.

"Captain, the enemy vessel we vacated is communicating in machine language to their fleet," Comm reported.

"Thank you, Comm. Are we recording this?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Send the message to Robb's station please when it's complete."

It was about time to put our resources to work in real-time by having Robb translate their communications for our use. I was sure all of the communications were computer-generated by neural networks rather than human brains—it had to be as the humans were all in stasis as far as we knew on the vessel we had left, and I suspected the rest of their fleet too.

I turned to Robb, "Robb, I need to know what they're saying to each other. Please provide a summary to me when their communications have ended as soon as you can."

"Aye, Captain."

Fifteen minutes later Robb spoke up, "Captain, I've sent the summary of their communications to your console."

I opened the message and reviewed the brief summary quickly. "Thank you, Robb."

Morgan was going to like this as this piece was an important part of the puzzle we were trying to solve. I began reading the detailed translation with interest, and when I was finished felt a sense of optimism. They had indeed informed their fleet we had downloaded the logs and other information. I was more confident than ever we were reading their intentions correctly—they wanted us to know what had happened to them. They were still being careful, protective, and I knew why. There were still several unanswered questions, but we were getting closer.

It was about an hour later when I finished reading over the logs. I had gotten to the point where the captain had ordered all crew to remain in place and restricted all travel between vessels in concert with the other captains in the fleet. The other useful piece of information was that the commander of the entire fleet was on the other large vessel of similar design—the one I was sure was the real recipient of the message we had intercepted. I was growing anxious as it was about time for Prescott to send me another message—this time he would be expecting results for sure as we had expended almost an entire day of the two days that were given to us.

"Captain, it's time for you to get a few hours of sleep?"

I turned a tired pair of eyes in Morgan's direction with a smile. "Yes, but I have news for you before I do, and then we need to give Prescott an update."

It took about ten minutes to go over everything and make decisions together about what was best to tell Prescott. We discussed a few more options and then opened a comm channel to Prescott.

"Captain, I hope you have some good news for me. Any progress?"

"Yes sir, we have made progress and think we understand, at least in part, what happened by going over their logs. All of their humans were put into cryosleep to prevent them from dying and their robots and automated systems have been running things ever since. From what we can tell that was about fifty-seven standard years ago."

"Humans? You're sure. You have direct proof?"

"Yes sir, we saw a few humans, all of them are inside the cryo-units. But all of the evidence contained in the logs speaks to human control before they entered the cryo-units. Something was making them sick, many of them were infected, and even more, had already died."

I could see the dubious expression on his face as we watched the monitor. I was hoping this would sway him and he would offer us an extension of time before he would take decisive action against their fleet.

"Why is it they attacked our ships if they're human? It doesn't make sense Captain. If they needed help from us they had their opportunity."

"We're still trying to find that information in their logs. So far, we haven't gotten that far. I think we may need more time to get you those answers."

"More time! They're probably completing their repairs and getting ready to attack us again. I really don't think I can wait. We have them at a disadvantage for the first time and I'm not going to throw it away for some pipe dream of yours based only upon conjecture."

Conjecture? Our report was based upon facts, the analysis consistent with what we had observed and collaborated with the contents of the two logs. There wasn't another alternative in terms of process. I decided not to get into an argument over the matter, I was outranked and if I couldn't convince him with logical, convincing analysis, I would lose.

"Admiral, did you pick up the communications from their other ship about two hours ago?"

"Yes, that's the reason I'm concerned they're getting ready to move against us."

I looked at Morgan. His face looked grim, then he spoke. "Admiral were you able to understand what their communications said?"

"Said? Commander, it was a bunch of machines talking to each other. Why would we take the time to decipher that?"

"Because the machines are running the show right now. They're protecting themselves from us though we don't understand why. We need more time to figure it out."

"Protecting themselves? What are they protecting by destroying our ships rather than asking for assistance?"

"The humans on their ships. They're doing what our own robots would do under the same circumstances. I expect the understanding of their original orders was degraded over time, and only recently have they been able to recover their original directives while conducting repairs due to our attack. I think now they're trying to correct their mistakes."

I could see we weren't making much progress with Prescott, so it was time to find out where we stood and make a decision on a course of action. I was afraid the Admiral wasn't going to like what I would do if he didn't give us more time. I also knew Morgan had let slip that we had attacked them. I wasn't sure the expression on his face showed he recognized what Morgan had said. It wasn't clear the Admiral had caught it, and I felt it unwise to bring it up again in case he hadn't.

"Admiral, I would like another two days to find the answers. That means we'll have to go back to the alien ship being guarded by our two ships."

"Why would you do that? We need you here."

"To revive one or two of their human crew members so we can talk with them."

"What! Captain, that's ridiculous. You would never get close enough to board that vessel. They would shoot you to pieces long before you got that close."

"Admiral, how do you think we obtained their logs and knew they had cryo-units onboard?"

The expression on his face showed he hadn't even considered the subject. I knew I had put him on the spot, but I didn't see any other way of making my point in a meaningful way without a lot of explanation and revealing Avenger's capabilities.

"Captain Casperson, I assumed you were able to hack into their computer systems remotely and there was no need for you to get too close."

He avoided answering the question directly as I expected him to.

"I don't believe you can get that close, Captain. So, the answer is no. You have one more day to get me definitive proof of human occupation. If you can't get me something I can accept in the allotted time I will take the course of action I deem best. Is that understood?"

I looked at Morgan and whispered, "Shall we give him a demonstration?"

Morgan nodded his head in agreement, a sly smile showing.

"Yes sir, your orders are clear. However, I would like to demonstrate our ship's capability if you would allow it by our approaching your ship."

"Captain, getting closer to my ship isn't going to change my mind."

"Please allow us to show you. That's all I'm asking."

"Very well," he replied curtly, his face showing a hint of disdain.

"Comm, take us passive and cloak us. Helm, take us to a position above their hull and in full view of their bridge, you are free to maneuver as needed, maintain separation at 500 meters."

"Aye, Captain," came the responses.

I hated to waste the time, but it was the best way to convince Prescott we knew what we were doing and could do it. Perhaps, hectoring him would be enough to give us more leeway and time. After all, having a ship suddenly appear right in front of you out of nowhere was likely to make quite an impression even on an admiral. Our ship wasn't huge, but it was impressive enough when you could almost reach out and touch it.

We moved into position and I waited for the Admiral's call. I was sure he was getting impatient about now. I had hardly finished the thought when his transmission appeared on the monitor—his face showing a little red.

"Captain, where the hell are you? I'm tired of waiting."

"Comm, take us out of cloak mode."

Morgan and I watched the monitor as Avenger became visible no more than five hundred meters from the bridge of the Admiral's ship.

The expletive the Admiral used was one I had never heard used on an open channel before, but I saw it brought a broad smile to Morgan's face. I looked around and saw the bridge crew were equally entertained. I tried hard to maintain a straight face, though I was sure I wasn't entirely successful.

"Comm, open an encrypted tactical channel to the Admiral's ship"

Once I got the nod from Comm, I was composed and businesslike. "Admiral, we will back off. We are heading for the enemy vessel, so you should alert the ships of our intentions. They will obviously not see our approach. We will be in touch when we come out of passive mode and will provide an update to you as soon as we can. Casperson out."

"Helm, take us to our last position with the alien ship."

"Aye, Captain. Away we go."

I looked at Parsons and saw the broad smile, then turned to Morgan.

"Wake me when we arrive. The bridge is yours."

He gave me a wink and a smile. Oh, how I wished he were coming with me. I entered my quarters, used the head, and lay down on my bunk; sleep took me quickly. When I awoke I knew it was because our landing skids had made contact with the hangar bay floor. I had just sat up when the chime for my door sounded. I gave the command and it opened with Parsons standing tall with a smile. "We're aboard the alien vessel, Captain."

"Thank you, Parsons. Please tell the Commander I'll be there in ten minutes after I get something from the galley."

Parson's smile grew even wider, "No need Captain, the Commander already has something to eat waiting for you on the bridge." Damn, there was a good reason I liked that man as much as I did.

I followed Parson's to the bridge and took my chair seeing a package of warmed rations sitting there. I looked over at Morgan and saw his broad smile.

"Thought I would cut you off at the pass so to speak," he offered quietly.

I wanted to give him a huge hug and kiss but settled for a light brush of his arm. Soon, this would be over and we would have our time together. I was feeling more confident than ever we were going to get through this in one piece.

"Captain, I have some news I think you're going to like."

I swallowed the food in my mouth before replying, "That would be welcome, Commander."

"According to their log, they were approached by a small fleet of spacecraft that was sending a distress call before getting their initial gravity assist past Jupiter in the solar system. There were no other craft nearby and the fleet commander elected to bring them aboard before they gained too much speed that wouldn't allow them to effect a rescue. Their spacecraft had barely enough speed to land aboard each vessel with a hangar deck. They accounted for an additional thirty-three humans so they were distributed between all the vessels in the fleet. That move provided for sufficient resources to support them over the duration of the flight while not in a cryo-unit. Of course, those humans were no longer going back to Earth or the Mars colonies."

"Okay, that sounds like a reasonable course of action. That still doesn't explain the need for the laser armament as when New Horizons left Earth there were few armed vessels in space."

"They were armed pirates, Captain. Another group approached a few hours later and that's when the lasers were quickly modified and placed into operation to fend them off if the battle cruisers with them failed to contain them. The robot workforces completed the work in record time and were given orders no other craft would be allowed to land on or approach the fleet's ships. According to the logs several pirate ships were destroyed before they broke off due to the increased speed of the fleet.

"That must have made the fleet commander and captains a little unhappy as soon as they discovered the occupation of their new crew members."

"According to the logs they were given specific jobs and told if they made any trouble they would be given their ships back and would be cast off. Of course, that was a death sentence as they would be too far away for their small craft to make it to human-occupied space and safety."

"I like the way that fleet commander thinks," I said with a smile.

"Captain, Robb, Zenn, and I will be suiting up to go into the cryo-compartment. We have identified the captain of the ship and his first officer. They were among the very last of the crew to be placed into stasis, so they should be able to fill us in on the details up to the time the ship was completely under the control of the AI unit and humanoid robots."

"Captain, look at monitor four, there's work activity in the hangar bay. It looks as if robots are repairing the airlock of the passageway to the cryo compartment."

Morgan and I looked at one another. This was an expected development and it might indicate we were expected, which might be good, or bad.