Steven Gordon 3: The Modloch Empire (35 page)

She paused for effect and to let the
news sink in. ‘Just one reaching Earth will kill everything and
everyone we know and love. If two reach Earth then the planet will
most likely shattered into pieces. Do you all understand the
gravity of the situation?’

There was a few mumbled agreements. She
held a hand to her ear. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.’

‘
Yes Ma’am.’ They
roared back.

‘
Good.’ She looked
round the room then glanced at Logan and Lloyd. ‘I will leave you
to it, gentlemen.’

CHAPTER 42

Steven had never quite seen anything
like it. The asteroid field was huge. Everyone sat at their posts.
Tension was high; it was so quiet Steven could feel his heart beat.
The ships were completely invisible, even to each other. Every
member of the crew looked straight out through the hull at the mass
of asteroids.

‘
Hailey avoid that
patch of dust. We could be seen moving through it.’

Despite the fact that he had kept his
voice low she was still startled and almost jumped a foot in the
air.

‘
Yes
Captain.’

No one laughed. The ship lifted up and
over a large dust cloud, then settled back on the same bearing. It
was a slick manoeuvre considering she couldn’t see the console at
her finger tips.

‘
Well done Hailey,
very neatly done.’

Her answer was a half-smile.

It was like floating through the
asteroid field in a bubble of air, Mya thought. She sat leaning
against Cookie. It felt good to be back on board again. Here life
was more simple, but she had felt the tension within the crew rise
to a strange height over the past few days. It had reminded her of
the time the Japanese used to visit her village; it was the same
sort of tension and it had unsettled her a bit. Cookie’s arm around
her waist was a great comfort.

She felt she was getting a crick in her
neck and sat up. Rotating her head she began to work the crick
loose. As she worked her head backwards she caught a glimpse of
something.

‘
There
Cookie!’

‘
Uh!
Where?’

‘
Up there.’ Mya
pointed. ‘No, it’s gone.’

‘
What did you
see?’

‘
I don’t know, it
looked square.’

Cookie concentrated. ‘Captain, Mya saw
something above us, something square.’

The ship came to a stop and began to
move backwards. Now they were both looking. Mya saw it first again.
‘There.’

Cookie saw it. ‘Right above our heads
Captain.’

‘
I can see it. Well
done Mya.’

The ship rotated until they were
looking at it head on. Mya had a big grin on her face and nudged
Cookie. He burst out laughing and gave her a hug.

As they drew closer, more of the object
became apparent. Steven was keeping his fingers crossed. It had
taken him a while to work out the best possible places to pick
asteroids from., calculating their distance from the barrier and
the distance from that point to Earth. Still, the area he
identified had been huge and days of searching had been futile.
Komoru was miles away searching in a grid pattern along the edge of
the field just like Steven was.

The large, square metallic object
became clearer as they approached. It was one of the blades that
Mya had seen. The object moved slowly out of the asteroid field.
Steven thought it looked like a giant forklift. The asteroid came
next on the blades, and then the body of the ship. It negotiated
its way round the last few asteroids and began to accelerate.

‘
Babes, are you
familiar with that type of ship?’

‘
I believe I have
schematics.’

‘
Do you have its top
speed?’

‘
Sub light. Heavy
shields my heart. They do not extend over the asteroid. The
asteroid is fixed by the use of heavy cables and, during
deceleration, the tines of those forks you see bend upwards to help
hold it in place. It will take most of the day to accelerate slowly
to maximum speed and a day and a half to decelerate. From here it
will take almost two weeks to reach the barrier at top
speed.’

‘
I imagine its
destination will fall somewhere short of that. Plot its course and
jump us ahead half a day at a time please.’

‘
That is dangerous my
heart. Half a day is too much. I suggest an hour only.’

‘
That will take us
forever!’

‘
You have us running
silent, no scanners. On a parallel course we will hit
something.’

Steven sighed. ‘OK Babes. Pilot,
Hailey, I am giving control over to the ship. Listen in everyone.
Control is now forwarded to the ship. We will be making jumps of an
hour distance. Many rapid ones. It will be disorientating. I
suggest you lie down wherever you are and close your eyes.’

He kicked his seat back and closed his
eyes. Beside him Buzz followed suit. ‘That’s a hellava chunk of
rock they are planning to throw at Earth.’

‘
It frightens the
hell out of me.’ Steven agreed.

It would take the asteroid-towing ship
a week to reach the base that was preparing to attack Earth, which
was situated midway between the asteroid field and the great
barrier.

‘
It is a modified
mining platform.’ Babes informed the crew. Steven could only shake
his head in wonder. None of them had ever seen such a thing. It was
almost a hundred square miles large. An asteroid was being placed
onto the platform, while another was just being taken away. Ships
both small and large moved around the area.

An Albany battle cruiser lifted off
from the platform, the giant rock only taking up about half of it.
Another battle cruiser of an unusual design took its place.

‘
How much do you want
to bet there is a bar on that station?’ Buzz ventured.

Steven nodded. ‘Makes sense they would
have somewhere for rest and recuperation.’

A line of destroyers swept in and
around the battleship and they accelerated away. Steven had seen
enough for now. ‘Let’s get to the rendezvous position; we are way
off course here. If we miss Komoru it will take us a whole day to
catch up with her.’

They moved slowly and carefully
away.

‘
Sid, what was the
comms traffic like?’ Steven asked Sid Tulane once they were safely
out of the area.

‘
Quiet as a church
mouse Captain. They are obviously using direct line of sight
communications. There was only the occasional ping from a craft
that is out of sight.’

‘
Do you think you
could plot those pings?’

‘
If you give me
Hailey, I’m sure I could.’

‘
We rendezvous with
Komoru in four hours. Have the data ready by then. Hailey, go with
Sid please.’

‘
Yes
Captain.’

Sid and Hailey walked into the stellar
cartography room almost side by side.

Hailey took a deep breath. ‘What do you
need?’

‘
I need the area
between the base and the barrier. Babes, can you give me the times
we received the pings, the direction of them and intervals between
them, and then plot them please?’

‘
Sid, why do you call
them pings?’

He shrugged, ‘Don’t know what else to
call them, Hailey, and they sound a little like the old asdic sonar
pings. You must have seen a movie or two when you were a kid. You
know that navy, submarines, ping?’

She laughed. ‘Yeah, my father was a
navy man. He used to watch all those old black and white
movies.’

‘
He must be very
proud of you.’

‘
So proud its almost
embarrassing at times. What about yours?’

‘
He died in
Afghanistan when I was a kid.’

‘
Oh... I’m sorry to
hear that.’

Sid looked away. ‘It was a long time
ago Hailey. I still miss him. I wish he could see all this. He was
the reason I joined up.’

‘
Did you join up so
you could get revenge?’

Sid burst out laughing. ‘Oh hell no. It
was to walk a mile in his boots. You know, see the things he did,
experience the same things.’

‘
To try and feel
closer to him.’ Hailey mused.

‘
Yeah I suppose
so.’

‘
Was he special
forces too?’

‘
Nah. I joined when a
friend of mine did, we thought it was a great idea. He dropped out
after a few weeks but by then I was hooked. I think I’ve only seen
him once since. Last I heard from him, he had left the army and now
works in a garage. Whole passel of kids. I’m kinda glad I stuck it
out. I mean this is some adventure isn’t it.’

Hailey smiled brightly. ‘It certainly
is.’

By the time Steven caught up with them,
they had a number of lines plotted.

‘
How’s it going
Sid?’

‘
We have plotted
everything we have sir.’

Steven studied the chart. ‘Explain all
this please.’

Sid pointed to the first group. ‘A ship
sends out a signal to another ship. If they don’t know where it is
they send out a ping. That ping will hold certain information, such
as the unique identifier of the ship they are trying to contact, as
well as their own identification, speed and direction. Only the
ship that its intended for will be able to decipher the ping. It
will send a ping back at the location the ship should be at. It
sometimes takes two or three pings for both ships to be able to
lock onto each other. Once they do then communication is line of
sight only and no one else can listen in to their transmissions. It
only takes a few seconds but ships can travel quite a distance in
that few seconds. That gives us a chance to plot the direction that
the ships are traveling in.’ Sid waved a hand and half the lines
disappeared. All that was left was a number of parallel lines. ‘As
you can see here, on this plot we get a bearing between the two
ships. These two were running parallel to each other.’ He flicked
his hand and the next plot came up. The lines spread out like a fan
but crossed at a point near the second ship. ‘On this plot the ship
nearest us is traveling towards the barrier while the far away ship
is traveling along the barrier from left to right. What these plots
don’t give us is the distance away they are. It isn’t until the
ships patrolling along the great barrier contact other ships from
other directions that you get a crossover. As you can see from this
third plot, the first ship contacted another ship off to its
right.’

‘
I see it.’ Steven
nodded. ‘The first ship is patrolling left to right and there is a
point where it contacted the third ship. It must have been at the
far left of its patrol route. I presume where the lines from the
other two ships cross is the distance they are away.’

‘
Exactly
sir.’

‘
It is still only
three points of reference.’

‘
No sir.’ Sid turned
the display and Steven could see that the ships were all at
different latitudes to each other. Sid also filled in every other
contact.

Steven could see all the other lines
converging. ‘That is damn good work. Sid, Hailey, well done. Would
I be wrong in saying that there are three different areas of
activity?’

‘
No you wouldn’t sir.
May I ask what we are going to do now?’

‘
Of course you can.
We are going to reconnoitre these areas, find out what the hell is
going on and then report back to the fleet. From there we will take
orders.’

CHAPTER 43

The base was a hive of activity. Ico
sat high above, recording it all. The colossal asteroids were towed
to the old mining base and two large parallel holes were drilled
into their mass. From there they were towed to a staging area. At
the staging area they were collected by military vessels and towed
to their launch points.

At the first launch site, Steven and
the crew watched as a large platform moved silently down the line
of asteroids. He got up and made his way to his private room.
Charlie was on the floor with his eyes closed and Steven lay down
beside him.

‘
Have they fired any
yet Charlie?’

Charlie opened his eyes. ‘No, the Chief
Engineer down there is stressed out to hell. They were supposed to
launch a massive attack about a year from now. Their whole
timetable revolved round it. That platform we are looking at is
only three quarters built. They rushed the last part of its
construction and now they are having problems. He has already had a
couple of blow outs with two lives lost. They are just practicing
loading the fuel and engines.’

‘
A dry
run?’

‘
Aye. The engines are
going to start arriving in about a week. They have thirty-seven
now, with a promise of another three to be completed soon. He
thinks they want to wait until they have all forty engines ready to
go before they fire them. They only have twenty asteroids here now,
they moved the excess to the other sites. That means that two sites
now have the correct number of asteroids; the third site requires
another twelve.’

‘
How are the engines
are going to arrive?’

‘
By some kind of
transport freighter that can carry four of them at time. This is
the only platform that is designed to load the fuel and the
engines.’

‘
So if we destroy
this platform then they are stuffed?’