The Khruellian Encounter Read online

  The committee left Earth without further ceremony and headed to Alpha. The reception there was much more subdued. The Alphans felt a collective sense of guilt for the predicament this part of the galaxy was in. Admiral Dexter, in particular, was not having any part of it. Under the reorganization to manage a much larger space force, he had been persuaded to leave his job as the CSF’s Commander in Chief to assume the role of Chief of Space Operations under Admiral Chen-Warren. He would handle the combat operations and would once again become Jon’s immediate superior. The Admiral used his considerable powers of persuasion to tell the Alphans to get over their ancestor’s poor judgment and focus on becoming a fighting force. To their credit, they took his admonitions seriously and promised to commit their society to whatever the admiral asked of them.

  He smiled broadly and said to the assembled leaders, “Good, meet your new military boss.” He pointed at Jon, who was as shocked as they were. The admiral explained, “Vice-Admiral McKinnah will be in charge of your ship conversion and training. I’m sure you will accord him the respect and dedication he deserves.”

  Jon heard the words “Vice-Admiral” and froze in shock. If it had not been for Talor congratulating him and reminding him he was expected to say something, he would have remained standing with his mouth open.

  With a glance at Admiral Dexter, who was smiling broadly at his discomfort, Jon said to the assembled Alphans, “I know you. You know me. We trust each other. Now let’s take that trust and build a mighty fleet to stop this cruel aberration of your ancestor’s good intentions.”

  It was exactly the right thing to say. It absolved the proud aliens of responsibility for the current situation and gave them a way to correct it. If it was possible, they grew taller, standing straighter with pride and resolve. The admirals and politicians all looked at Jon with renewed respect.

  Later, in the lounge aboard the CSF Constitution, Jon brought out a bottle of twelve-year-old Evian Whisky and poured a drink for all the committee members. He said; “I have been saving this for a special occasion. I guess this is it.”

  They sipped their drink appreciatively. Admiral Dexter sat his down and said, “Sorry for springing that promotion and assignment on you like that, Jon, but it was approved shortly before we left Newhope. Today seemed like a good time to tell you.”

  Jon looked at the admiral over the rim of his glass. “I owe you for that surprise, Sir.”

  Dexter laughed aloud, “I’m sure you’ll come up with a fitting payback, son.” He reached into his pocket and took out a small box and opened it. A pair of gold stars with an orbital ring around each one gleamed in the light. He started to hand the box to Jon, but the young man put up his hand and said, “If you don’t mind, Sir, I’d like you to give them to my wife. She’s in charge of such matters.”

  Admiral Dexter nodded his head in approval and put the box back in his pocket. He raised his glass and said, “Well said, Admiral McKinnah.”

  When the Constitution landed at Newhope, Jon checked the roster to see if the CSF Sparta was back from patrol. His disappointment was keen when he learned that Annika was not due back for a week. He shrugged off his disappointment and thought about the huge task he had ahead of him, how to arm ships that were never designed to hold weapons and to train aliens who for forty thousand years had been avowed pacifists. The euphoria of becoming the youngest admiral in the CSF’ short history was soon replaced by the worry of carrying out his new, awesome responsibility. Reluctantly he asked Admiral Dexter for his new insignias so he could carry out his orders. Admirals usually got a lot more attention when they requested something, and Jon was going to be making a lot of requests in the immediate future. Admiral Dexter did him the honor of pinning his new stars on personally. Jon saluted him smartly after the older man was finished. “Thank you, Sir,” he said with feeling.

  The admiral returned his salute and said, “You may not thank me in the coming days, Jon. I consider the task you’ve been asked to do almost impossible. I don’t know if anybody can make a fighting force out of the Alphans, but I know you’ll give it your best effort.”

  Jon decided to get started right then, “What’s my budget?”

  Admiral Dexter looked surprised and then laughed. “You’re already acting like an admiral.” He became serious and said, “Anything short of bankrupting us, Jon. We need those ships to have any chance of beating back the Hegemony.”

  Jon said, “We’ll get it done, Sir.”

  The one drawback to being promoted was he lost his ship and his squadron command. Group Captain Peter Zarnosky took over as squadron commander. That night Jon and his fellow officers celebrated at the officer’s club. A hush settled on the room when the two older McKinnahs, senior and junior came into the room to congratulate Jon on his promotion to Vice-Admiral. These two men had literally created the CIP and CSF. No one in the room doubted that Jon would follow in their footsteps.

  Chapter 61

  Alpha Tau Alpha

  Once the exercise maneuver was completed, the squadron of small, silver disk-shaped ships returned to base. Jon watched them land and expressed his satisfaction to Ruuhr, who had assumed the role of leader of the newly created Alphan Space Force. Jon had to admit the Alphans had made incredible progress in the past five months. There had never been any question about the aliens’ ability to fly and maneuver their small ships. They were the most agile pilots Jon had ever seen. In Forty thousand years of flying in Hegemony space, the Khruellians had never been able to intercept one of the Alphan scouts. That was proof enough of their ability to fly. They were so elusive that for the last ten thousand years the Khruellians hadn’t even bothered to try, but recently the Hegemony warships had stepped up their efforts to destroy any Alphan scout ship they encountered. Jon and Ruuhr agreed it was probably because the Khruellians had begun to suspect the Alphan ships were associated with the unknown enemy attacking their fleets.

  It was a surprise to everyone when the Khruellians had withdrawn their expansion fleet from the frontier. That relief was short lived when the scouts reported the Hegemony fleets were being refitted with defensive weapons systems. Tensions increased further when Khruellian scout ships were detected on the edges of the Orion-Cygnus cluster. Intelligence reports suggested an attack could be expected at any time. The cat and mouse games the ADO had used to deceive the Hegemony about their location and identity had succeeded in buying them time, but the first, head-to-head battle would tell them if it had been enough time.

  Jon had spent the last five months in the Alphan system training the eager, but inexperienced pilots in the art of space warfare. He had come to admire these ungainly aliens, their culture, their sense of peaceful order, and now their willingness to put aside all the things that had been sacred to them to become a part of the ADO’s survival effort. With a concentrated effort, he had even learned their language, at least enough to command his UFO Space Force as it was affectionately called by his peers and friends on Newhope. His effort to learn about them and their culture had earned him the admiration and respect of the volunteer pilots who flew under his command.

  Jon listened to the Alphan squadron commander give his report. The alien exuded extreme confidence in his team’s ability to carry out their orders and be an effective fighting force. Jon agreed with him, but he reminded himself that no Alphan had ever been lost in combat, and in the coming battle, many were likely to be killed. How they would react to that was the unknown element that kept the Space Force’s youngest admiral awake at night.

  Early the next morning Jon boarded the CSF Islandia II for Newhope. The ship had been assigned to him as his personal staff ship during the Alphan training period. He was scheduled to give his status report to Admiral Dexter and the ADO staff the following morning. Ruuhr and the Alphan fleet commander, Auuga Knel accompanied him in an Alphan ship. Jon wanted to demonstrate the system they had devised to launch the dissembler missiles. It had actually been the engineers from the Hooshag Confederation, who were r
apidly becoming recognized as the best engineers in the ADO who had come up with the refitting scheme. However they had managed to get it done, it had proven to be very effective.

  Jon was anxious to see Annika, who he worried about constantly. They had only had three short leaves together in the past five months, and each time they parted, they worried it would be the last time. She was on patrol around Hylox and was in constant danger of being attacked by Hegemony scouts. Adalan had started going on some of those patrols with Annika, and they had become very close. Annika told Jon that the two of them often talked about him and that Adalan had made no secret of her admiration and love for Annika’s husband. On one of their leaves, Annika had kidded Jon about having two wives, one a blonde and the other a seven-foot-tall cat woman.

  Captain Burns put the Islandia down in Jon’s reserved spot. It had been fun to catch up with his old crew, but he knew the gulf between a vice-admiral and the crew on a frigate was too great for many of them to bridge comfortably. They were polite and pleased about his promotion but at the same time were more distant than they had been in the past. Jon accepted that and understood they were part of his past. He would always treasure the loyalty they had given him when he had been their captain.

  The review of the Alphan progress went off without a hitch. Both Dexter and Chen-Warren were pleased with what Jon reported and especially pleased by Auuga Knel’s attitude about the Alphans going into battle. Later, Dexter asked him how he had pulled it off.

  Jon smiled in recollection. “Our psych department gave me a holographic war game to use as a screening device. Almost every adult in Alphan society knows how to fly their little scout ships. I invited the best pilots to play the game then picked out the ones who played the hardest to win and promoted them to combat pilots.”

  Admiral Dexter looked at Jon for a full twenty seconds before saying anything. Finally, he shook his head and said, “If ever I had a doubt about who your father and grandfather were, I don’t have it now. Get out of here. Your wife has been calling this office every day since she’s been on leave.”

  Jon took Dexter’s suggestion as a command and left. Talor informed Jon he was going to stay with the Alphans to act as an interpreter until they left. Jon agreed and caught a personnel carrier to his apartment. Annika came running down the hall when she heard the door open. He dropped his bag and caught her as she jumped up and straddled him with her legs wrapped around his waist. Nothing was said for a full minute. Jon knew she was crying in the crook of his neck and he just let her. The wash of emotions threatened to overwhelm them both, but Annika finally stopped crying and let her legs fall to the floor. He continued to hold her close until she said, “Will this ever be over?”

  Jon brushed Annika’s hair away and looked at her, her eyes, red from crying. “Yes,” he answered simply, “And for the first time I am encouraged to believe we have a fighting chance.”

  Annika smiled and said, “Is that the admiral speaking or a wishful husband?”

  “Both,” he answered and led her to the kitchen where he knew she would have some strong Islandian tea brewing. Annika poured them both a cup. Sat down and listened while Jon repeated what he told the admirals and their assembled staffs. He waved his hands imitating a flight pattern and said, “The Alphans are incredibly quick in their little ‘Flea class’ fighters.” It was an affectionate term he had given the small, agile silver discs. The term had stuck and eventually became their official designation.

  He continued enthusiastically, “Armed with a smaller version of the dissembler missile, they are a match for most of the Khruellian warships we’ve encountered.”

  Annika was infected by Jon’s enthusiasm, but she asked the question that almost everybody in the ADO space force was asking, “Will they stand and fight when the pulse guns start firing?”

  Jon tried to be realistic in his answer. Five months among the Alphans had changed his mind about their society. They were a race of scholars for sure, but they were much tougher than the other species gave them credit for. “Some may scatter and run when the shooting starts, but I believe most will stay and fight. Those that ran will most certainly return as soon as they see their brothers and sisters fighting the enemy.”

  Annika looked at him for a moment. “Thank you, Jon, now I have hope. Out on patrol near the edge of the Hegemony, it was difficult to have hope. I guess I just had to let that out,” she said explaining her tearful reunion at the front door.

  Jon took her hand and said, “Baby, I just can’t believe we will not be okay.”

  Annika didn't say anything. She stood up and took Jon’s hand and led him toward their bedroom.

  Chapter 62

  Orion boundary in the vicinity of Hylox

  The CSF Sparta made the next jump in her scheduled perimeter patrol route. The XO, Lt. Bryon Jorgenson, “BJ” to his friends and superior officer listened carefully as the young ensign on the threat board reported the new situation. All was clear, no unusual activity detected. BJ relaxed slightly and took a sip of his coffee He smiled slightly when the captain entered the room with signs of sleep still showing in her face. BJ pointed toward the coffee station without saying a word, and a steward poured a cup of black coffee into a cup with “Captain” stenciled on the side.

  Annika accepted the cup with a gracious nod. “Good morning, BJ, anything unusual going on?”

  “Quiet as a madam the morning after shore leave is over, Ma’am,” BJ said. The Lieutenant had a reputation for raucous humor and a knack for descriptive terms.

  In spite of her efforts not to, Annika smiled, which made BJ’s day. It was the challenge he enjoyed every morning at shift change, coming up with a different metaphor to describe the situation. He graded his efforts by the captain’s expression; a frown was a failure, no expression was neutral. A smile was a moderate success, and a laugh was a home run.

  Annika took the captain’s chair, and BJ left the bridge to take care of other duties. She sipped her coffee and scanned the central monitor. The CSF Sparta carried a crew of forty-nine and enough stores for two months, although the CSF usually restricted patrols to four weeks. This was the end of their third week, and she could feel the anticipation building up in the crew members. They began to talk about their loved ones and what they planned to do on leave. After a year and a half together and a major battle under their belt, they were a cohesive team. They treated each other as family, and many of the unattached crew members spent their leave time together.

  Annika was not immune to their mood and as the end of the CSF Sparta’ patrol duty neared, she found herself starting to dream of making love to Jon. Unfortunately, that was not likely to happen this time since Jon’s new duties as vice-admiral in charge of the Alphan fleet caused him to be away from Newhope during most of her leave times. “Perhaps he will be home this time,” she thought but decided not to put too much hope into it. It surprised her how much she also missed Talor. Just as Jon’s grandmother, Marcia had discovered many years earlier, the android had become a confidant. His ability to listen to her and offer sound advice was something she had come to appreciate. Annika was keenly aware of just how much Talor knew about their private lives including their lovemaking. It was this intimate knowledge that made it easy for her to open up to the android about any subject.

  A small alarm jolted her out of her reverie. The com officer said, “Incoming message from squadron command.”

  The CSF Sparta was one of the twenty-five ships on patrol around the forward perimeter, all of them assigned to the Falcon Wing commanded by Group Captain Adrian Blaskoff from the Terran Confederation. The wing consisted of fifteen CSF ships, five from the Hooshag Confederation and five from the Hylox Empire. This was the start of the second year of interspecies patrols, and after a rocky start, the different species had accepted the command structure and the necessary restrictions to make it work.

  Anita read the message on her private com and felt her pulse quicken. Contact from the direction of the hegemo
ny. A year earlier they had scattered thousands of drones between the Orion Arm and the much larger Perseus Arm. These drones contained detectors developed by the labs at Gruenwald designed to monitor the disruption in the fabric of space/time continuum when a ship enters FTL space. With multiple monitors, these ripples could be used to track the location of the entry point. The strength of the ripple determined the size or quantity of ships entering subspace.

  A second alarm brought the bridge crew to full attention. One message was not unusual; two were very unusual. Something was up.

  Anita read the second message and in a voice calmer than she felt said, “Sound general quarters.”

  The claxon sounded, and the ship erupted in a flurry of activity. Meals were left incomplete, and bunks were cleared in seconds. The ready board began to flash green lights, and the last one lit up at the fifteen-second mark. Annika was please at their reaction time. She had taken Jon’s suggestion about constant training very seriously, and her ship and crew had achieved one of the highest RFCs, ready for combat certification grades in the fleet. Her people knew their job and their weapons. They were ready for whatever was coming.

  She opened the ship-wide com and said, “This is not a drill, Ladies, and Gentlemen. Fleet Command has detected a substantial force of Khruellian ships entering subspace. When they emerge and repower up for another jump, we will know the direction they are heading. Until then we can only assume they are headed our way.”

  She knew it would take the Khruellians another hour to power up before they could make another jump, It was the same weakness every other FTL drive had except for the Ankh’s IS-Drive. Most of the officers in the fleet believed it was this advantage that would give them a chance to beat the Khruellians in a direct confrontation. Without having to rest and recharge their capacitors, the ADO fleet could move at will in and around the enemy ships. It had worked during the Muhyba Wars, and the fleet’s battle tactics had been developed around that concept, hit and run.