Hyperion

"The early David units used a straight chemical reaction, sir."

"So no EM signature?"

"No sir."

"And the Walter units?"

"Are you more specifically interested in the electro-magnetic signature of the Walter assigned to Covenant, Admiral?"

"Are there differences within that line?"

"Yes, there are, Admiral. Covenant's Walter was a Gen 3 model with a lithium hydroxide reaction generator. That is a closed-loop system, sir, capable of long duration operations without refueling."

"How strong is the EM line on our scanners?"

"Faint, sir, at best."

"Any modifications we could make to enhance our detection capability?"

His Gordon went into access mode, trying to locate the relevant file or files, then he looked at Ripley and scowled. "Access to that information is limited, Admiral. I've used your access code and I am, we are, still being denied."

"Who is limiting our access?"

"The Company, sir."

Ripley opened his desk drawer and pulled out a drive key, and this he inserted into his desktop display. "Use this key," he said to Gordon, his voice flat now, and very quiet.

"Just a moment," Gordon said as he linked to Ripley's computer, then his eyes blinked rapidly as he accessed the data stream. "The file is quantum-encrypted, sir."

Ripley opened another file. "Try this," Ripley added.

Another brief pause, more rapidly blinking eyes. "Accessing the relevant data now, Admiral."

Ripley stood and walked over to the viewport and looked at Stavridis taking on fuel from the Wilson, his hands crossed behind his back.

"Admiral, I have the frequency."

"Can we modify the scan protocol?"

"Yes, Admiral. In fact, I can modify our systems to track all currently operating units."

"Enable tracking on my command only," Ripley sighed, looking down. "Are you sure there are no files available that would allow us to track this David unit?"

Silence. Blinking eyes. "Possibly at short range, within a kilometer under optimal conditions."

"Where's Patton currently?"

"Patton is 2500 kilometers ahead, with one of Wilson's escorts, Admiral."

Ripley spun around, now visibly angry. "Who gave that order?" he barked.

"Admiral Adams, sir. Not long after Ticonderoga's jump into the system. You were asleep, if you'll recall."

"Their Fields are up?"

"Yes, Admiral."

"How far out could we detect Walter's signal?"

"Walter, sir? Do you mean Covenant's Walter?"

"Yes."

"That information is unknown."

"Best guess, then. Do you think we could detect his signal from orbit?"

"Assuming his structure is intact and his power cells are not completely depleted, possibly from low orbit."

"How far out would that be possible?" Ripley sighed, stippling his fingers, appearing to be lost in thought while he set his last trap.

"Unknown, Admiral."

"And what if Walter could augment his signal?"

"Sir? Do you have information that I can not access?"

"Gordon, could you augment or otherwise boost your own signal? If, say, you were abandoned on an uninhabited planet?"

Gordon hesitated, and that was all Ripley really needed to see.

So Ripley nodded understanding. "This is protected information, isn't it?"

"Yes, Admiral."

"I suspected as much. And weren't these the same type of protection protocols behind the development of the paranoid personality traits the David units developed?"

Gordon couldn't answer that question either.

"So Gordon, tell me this much, at least. Are the Walter units running the same protocols?"

"No Admiral, they are not."

"Are you lying, Gordon?"

"I am not capable of lying, Admiral, either directly or by the explicit omission or deletion of information."

"I see. And...would it possible to download a Walter units core code to current Gordon units?"

Gordon's eyes blinked rapidly as conflicting data streams began competing for CPU time. Then -- a first. His Gordon asked to sit down, and perhaps because he appeared unsteady on his feet.

"Gordon? Are you alright?"

"No Admiral, I am not."

"Too bad you can't link to the Company's mainframe right now, isn't it?"

The blinking accelerated -- until Gordon's eyes simply shut.

'Sorry I had to do that to you,' Ripley muttered wordlessly to himself. He then turned to the intercom and called the bridge. "Captain, send a security detail to my cabin, and have all Gordon units report to the hanger deck."

Brennan looked a little confused. "Just the Gordon units, Admiral?"

"That's correct, Captain. All Gordon units. On the double."

"Yessir."

The security detail reported within a few minutes and Ripley had his Gordon moved to the hanger deck. He walked along behind the gurney the detail had loaded Gordon on, confident that the Field would inhibit any signals these Gordon units might try to send out to the fleet before they could be deactivated. Any synthetics onboard that might conceivably become paranoid had to be contained, and he simply wasn't going to take any chances. Not after the Company had guaranteed such an outcome was now impossible. Ripley's biggest new concern now was finding out what his Gordon might have already done to compromise the integrity of the mission.

Once he arrived at the hanger deck he found Brennan already there waiting for him, and he nodded her way, acknowledging her concern. Immediately Ripley had all the Gordons on Hyperion deactivated and then he laid out Gordon's revelations to Brennan.

"So, you think we need to see if these units made any surreptitious communications to the Company before we jumped?" Brennan asked.

"That would be a good place to start."

"What tipped you off, Admiral?"

"For one, he was monitoring all my COMMs to fleet headquarters in Norfolk."

"Mine too," Brennan sighed.

"Okay, so let's assume they all were," Ripley said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "What do you see as our next course of action?"

"Fleet-wide deactivation, Admiral, at the very least. Next, we could experiment, see about downloading older core systems into them."

"Do we need them that much?"

"Need, Admiral?"

"What if they have embedded subroutines onboard that might allow them to run some kind of emergency activation signal directly from the Company?"

"So what? It would take months for such a signal to get here from Earth."

Ripley shook his head. "Assume the Company gets at least one ship through to this system much sooner than that."

Brennan looked alarmed. "Do you think that's possible?"

"Stanton does. Remember, the Company has built almost every ship in the Navy and the Space Force, so where does that lead you?"

"No place good, sir. Worst case, the Company might be able to reactivate their units."

"And then we'd have to consider these Gordon units hostile, wouldn't we?" Ripley added. "Hostile and already onboard, and they'd be familiar with all our systems and routines, wouldn't they?"

"Logically, that would be a real possibility. What are you thinking? Flush them out the hanger deck?"

"Hard vacuum wouldn't kill them, Louise. If a Company ship gets in-system they might just locate them and pick them up, in effect augmenting their forces."

"We could ask a Walter unit?" Brennan said. "I mean, if we can't trust them...well, we're screwed. Half of engineering is manned by Walters."

"Which leaves us where, exactly?"

"First," Brennan said, holding up one finger, "if we notify Ticonderoga we have to assume their Gordon units will know something's up, and we don't know how they'll respond..."

Ripley nodded. "So, do we assume they'll respond just like the original David's did?"

"Probably. Second," she continued, holding up second finger, "if the Gordons are internally linked then they already know."

Ripley nodded again. "Then we have to identify that frequency and jam it."

"On it," Brennan said urgently, turning and sprinting off towards CIC and the COMMs shack.

Ripley turned and looked at the deactivated Gordons backed up to the hanger door, standing there like mute sentinels waiting to come back to life. "We can't keep making the same mistakes and expect different outcomes," he sighed. "Now, how do we keep two steps ahead of the Company...when we know they've already gamed the system?"

"In such a scenario, Admiral, you need to know your opponent's main objective and the means he has at his disposal to accomplish this."

Ripley turned and was surprised to find a Walter unit from engineering standing just behind him. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I heard you ask a question, and I thought I might be of some service."

"You did, huh? All by your little ole self?"

"Sir?"

Ripley looked at the patient, almost condescending look in the synthetic's eyes and he suppressed a shudder. "So tell me, Walter. There is another Walter unit in this system that is not currently onboard any of our ships. Are you capable of locating this Walter?"

"The Walter from Covenant, sir? Yes, I am in contact with him now. He states there is a large hostile force in orbit around Beta Auriga 4 and he advises against approaching that system."

Ripley nodded. "Tell me, Walter...are you capable of lying?"

"Yes, Admiral. When necessary I am quite fluent in the various languages of human deceit."

Ripley smiled. "Well then, I reckon I can trust you."

"Thank you, Admiral."

"Right. You stick with me, and try not to stand on my toes, okay?"

Chapter Five

That's the Way the Heroes Go

USNSF Patton                                             20 July 2115

Captain Judith Caruthers stared at the central display in Patton's CIC, the ship's Combat Information Center, her eyes locked onto the rightmost section of the huge rectangular panel. Beta Capella 4 was displayed as an orange circular object, the planet's two moons in yellow, and there were now five distinct objects in orbit around BC4. Patton's radar had just been recycled to standby mode, and now all eyes were glued on a live image of the five orbiting objects -- as received by a 30-inch Schmidt camera poking up through Patton's Field.

"Any reaction to our scan?" Caruthers asked, her voice almost a coarse, husky whisper.

"No change in EM radiating from any of them, Captain."

She was looking at five horseshoe shaped objects that appeared to be of a similar shape and type to the ship that had crashed near the citadel on the planet's surface, and she slowly nodded her head as the words registered. Half the planet was covered by a vast network of low pressure systems, and she'd never seen anything like the lightning display currently over the planet's dark side.

Then the central display flickered and an automatic warning flag appeared.

"Captain! Looks like we got a ship coming up from the surface," Patton's ECM operator said. "I'm picking up a spike in the hydrogen beta line. Yup, line firming up now. Definitely a fusion reactor, and Captain, it looks like a Fusion Dynamics RD-1."

"What?"

"Look at that spike! Definitely an RD-1, Captain," the Electronic Counter Measures officer repeated.

The Schmidt camera began to pick up a pronounced light bloom inside one of the smaller storms, and almost immediately what appeared to be a small Company ship emerged from the cloud deck -- and almost at once the Company ship reacted to the fleet of unfamiliar craft overhead, and the much smaller ship powered down and fell back into the clouds.

"Smooth move, Dick-wad," Caruthers sighed. "We have any estimate on how big those ships are?"

"Between 15 and 1900 feet in length, Captain."

"Shit...big mothers, aren't they? Still no power signatures?"

"Nothing, Captain. And they're not even radiating heat."

The COMMs officer walked into the room and looked at the display, then he turned to Caruthers. "You want me to call this in?" he asked.

Caruthers shook her head. "Shit...no way, not until we have a better idea of their capabilities." She couldn't help herself now, either. Here it was, finally. Definitive proof of another spacefaring civilization, and all of Patton's sensor arrays and cameras were recording every second of this first encounter -- and it was her discovery! "You got a read on what that Company ship is up to now?" she asked the ECM officer.

"They're down below in the clouds, headed for those storms on the dark side," ECM replied.

"Movement, Captain!" the astrophotographer manning the camera cried. "Looks like one of those ships is powering up, moving away from the others."

From this distance any such movement was almost impossible to discern, then she saw one of the ships rotating until the open end of the horseshoe was pointing away from the planet...

...and in the next moment this ship flared brightly -- then just disappeared.

"Goddammit to hell!" Caruthers shouted. "That was an FTL drive! Anyone pick up anything? Any reactor spikes? Any signature at all?"

No one had detected even the slightest change, and that just didn't make sense -- to Caruthers or to any of the other sensor operators in Patton's CIC.

"Two more ships moving now, Captain!" the astrophotographer said. "Looks like their whole fleet is moving out!"

Caruthers studied the display -- and yes, four ships left orbit...yet one remained.

"Curious," Caruthers whispered as all eyes in CIC studied the image. "Astro, replay the company ship emerging from the cloud deck, and let's see it at max magnification this time." She watched the replay, saw the clouds flare, watched the much smaller ship emerge from the clouds, and then... "What's that?" she said as she moved closer to the screen. "Did she fire something at one of the alien ships?"

"Let me run the raw feed through AI," the astrophotographer murmured, turning to his displays and getting to work. A moment later his efforts produced new results and they popped up on the central display.

The Company ship had fired a small missile at one of the ships, but it didn't explode on impact; rather, the missile seemed to penetrate the outer hull of the ship then simply disappeared inside. "Is that ship the same one still in orbit?" Caruthers asked, and the segment was played and rewound several times before the answer to that question firmed up.

"Even from this distance, Captain, I'm pretty sure that's the same ship."

"Yup," Caruthers whispered. "COMMs? Raise the high power mast. Let's get a dispatch off to Fleet...at high power."

"Captain! Look!"

All eyes turned to the main display once again -- as the Company ship rose from the clouds, only this time it made orbit.

"Belay that order, COMMs. Set Condition 1 throughout the ship and full radio silence -- now, and confirm all EM systems are set to standby. Let's make like a hole, people!"

It took the Company ship two orbits to establish a departure course, and all the while her personnel studiously ignored the dead horseshoe shaped ship they'd just attacked. Late in her second orbit the small ship's plasma drive flared and Caruthers watched as the little ship left orbit, heading away from Capella -- and well away from the departure angle the four alien ships had taken.

"So," she murmured to herself, "I reckon you're going after Covenant now, hmm?" She waited a half hour then all Patton's masts raised outside of the ship's protective Langston Field. Messages burst forth, headed back towards Capella -- and the Hyperion Fleet -- and then, while watching both ships, she waited for Ripley's reply...

...while inside the stricken alien ship the second pitched battle for control entered a new, very dangerous phase.

Chapter Six

Don't look back, whatever you do

USNSF Hyperion                                        20 July 2115

Brennan and Ripley stared at the image on the main display in Hyperion's CIC, dumbfounded.

So many questions. And no easy answers.

And due to the distance between Patton and Hyperion, they all had to contend with a minutes long differential in comms.

Then the frequency used for comms to Ticonderoga lit up, and a moment later Admiral Adams was onscreen. "Admiral Ripley, have you had time to watch the entire sequence?" Adams asked.

And Ripley nodded. "What's our next move?" he replied, noting that she was flanked by Ticonderoga's captain and exec.

"It seems obvious that the company wants Covenant, but what that purpose is..."

"I know," Ripley scowled. "It's a mystery with no happy ending. But knowing their record I'd say they're up to no good."

"Agree. So?" Adams shrugged. "What's priority one?"

"Assay the planet from orbit. See if we can locate that city. If not, we pursue."

"That's how we see it," Adams nodded.

"One problem," Brennan said, breaking into the conversation. "Those other four ships left in a hurry, and they did so using an FTL technology we can only guess about. We have to assume the possibility exists they went to get reinforcements."

Adams blanched at the thought, but she nodded. "Good point. And if they return? Well then, we were the aggressor, weren't we?"

Brennan shook her head. "Not necessarily, Admiral. Assuming we can communicate with them perhaps they could be convinced the Company is our common enemy..."

"You mean," Adams squinted, "form an alliance with an alien, possibly hostile force?"

"Remember that old saying," Brennan added. "Then enemy of my enemy is my friend? Why not form a new alliance?"

Ripley interrupted. "What do we tell Patton? Pursue or assume orbit around BC4?"

"What are your thoughts, Admiral?" Adams asked.

"Until we know something about the weapon they used, I don't want to get anywhere near either ship. They obviously have both the Drive and the Field, and they obviously didn't come through Capella, so we can assume they made multiple Jumps and entered the system through a back door -- probably through Epsilon Aurigae -- but we aren't going to find out unless we hang back and watch them."

"That," Brennan added, "leaves Covenant exposed, plus we won't be in a position to interfere with whatever the Company's ultimate objective with that ship is."

Adams shrugged, not sure what to say. "So Denton, what do you want to do?"

"Head to BC4 at maximum acceleration, slingshot around the planet and hit the Company ship before they reach Covenant. And I want to send Patton into orbit to look for that city mentioned in the report. We may find a few answers there."

"Like what?"

"Who knows? We have to admit that right now we don't know an awful lot about what's going on out here, but there's a pretty good chance we may find a few clues down there."

"Assuming," Adams added, "the company hasn't destroyed all the evidence. Speaking off, we've tried a core dump and a reprogram of one of our Gordon units. It turned psychotic and had to be shut down again."

Ripley nodded. "I assumed as much." He looked at Adams and sighed. She just wasn't cut out for a mission like this, and they both knew it. "How soon can you be ready for acceleration?"

"Are you thinking 2Gs?" she replied.

"No, Admiral. We're looking at 2.6Gs. At that velocity we'll overtake the Company ship about a week before she makes contact with Covenant."

Adams looked at her display and nodded. "This is going to hurt, Denton. You know that, don't you?"

"It is what it is, Alice," he said, putting her on the defensive. "How 'bout an hour from now? Give everyone time to grab some chow before we hit the couches?"

"Okay then...sixty minutes to acceleration."

The central display went dark and Ripley turned to his middies. "Thomas, I want you here in CIC with Commander Chen. Yukio? On the bridge with Captain Brennan, but I want you over at the NAV station working on the intercept? Any questions?"

When there were none he sent them off to the wardroom for breakfast then turned to Captain Brennan. "I'm going down to Sick Bay to check on Captain Ames. I'll check in with you on the bridge before I head to my cabin."