Phantom chapter 4 (standard:science fiction, 2051 words) [4/5] show all parts
Author: St George	Added: Mar 12 2003	Views/Reads: 2415/1853	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Chapter 4

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

believe, the first sapient to do so. Would you like to see my thesis?” 
“Some other time maybe Chrysys.” 

Sentient computers operated on a whole different plane to humans, that
was obvious from Archer's brief experience with Gia, the navy's primary 
computer. Chrysys was different though. She had been cultured from a 
biopsy taken from Gia (so that she would inherit some of Gia's traits) 
but she was very different from her sire (and indeed from her sisters 
Alecto and Galadriel). Chrysys tended to be officious and by the book. 
Like Alecto, the only other shipbound sentient AI, Chrysys' drives and 
desires had been genetically encoded. She had been given a will to 
fight, and she was compelled to value human life above others, even her 
own. However, she differed from her sister Alecto in that she actually 
enjoyed fighting. Violence was part of her nature in a way that was not 
encoded by her creators, as was her scientific skill. Chrysys was the 
opposite of Alecto, definitely more warrior than poet, more scientist 
than philosopher. 

“Helm, lay in a course for ME83, ahead standard.” This was the patrol
location supplied by the admiralty. At a little over ten days away, at 
standard speed, this would put them as far away from help as any ship 
in the alliance. This cruise would, in all likelihood, be rather harder 
than their previous excursions into enemy territory. The Megaeran navy 
was on guard. They knew that their border was being penetrated by 
undetectable ships, and they had thrown defensive rings around likely 
targets and set patrols on approach routes. Their intelligence was 
flawed however. They did not realise that, for the moment, Phantom was 
the only one of her class, and they assumed that she was an Anduril 
vessel because they considered human science too backwards to construct 
such a weapon. 

“Activate EH, rig for minimum signature.” By day four of the journey
Phantom had already encountered two sensor drones and this was the 
third. Their assigned course was one of those considered likely by the 
enemy and was heavily watched by these unmanned probes which floated 
free in hyperspace, reaching out with active/passive epdar and EM 
sensors. This required frequent EH activation and deceleration; this 
one was different though. The Megaeran scientists had come up with an 
ingenious modification to their standard sensor drone. If the drone 
couldn't see the enemy, maybe it could ‘feel' it. These modified drones 
were surrounded by a flock of tiny (no more than a square centimetre) 
satellite drones equipped with accelerometers and transceivers. These 
micro-drones formed a cloud several kilometres wide but thinly 
populated. Because of the extremely low mass of the micro-drones they 
gave a negligible passive epdar signature. As Phantom moved through the 
cloud it disturbed a few of the micro-drones, the transceivers reported 
this to the host drone and with position and course plotted in this 
way, the drone had all the information necessary to fire its single 
torpedo at the interloper. This it did. 

The torpedo with its tiny signature was detected too late, it hit the
port side about a third of the way back, worse still Phantom's shields 
were down to conserve power. The ship shook. “Impact,” cried a voice. 
“Shields up, damage report!” ordered Archer. “Minor damage Captain, it 
must've been a small torp or missile. There's no radiation, it was 
explosive only, we lost about 17% off armour panel P-144, no hull 
breach.” They were lucky, the drone was too small to carry anything 
larger. Such armed drones were designed to work in a flock, however due 
to the necessity of deploying drones so widely they had been deployed 
individually. “Continue on course.” was her response. “Have engineering 
replenish the panel.” There was little else to be done, the mission was 
not compromised. If they came up against another drone then she would 
give it a wider margin. 

Lieutenant Murdoch took personal charge of the repair. It wasn't that he
didn't trust his repair crews, but if something started blowing up bits 
of his ship, he took it personally. The repair was a simple enough job. 
He drew out one of the armour booster sets that were standard on all 
alliance ships and then went to the panel that had been damaged. All 
exterior hull armour panels had small access doors on the interior. 
Murdoch opened the access door and then the box of memoran booster 
material. The box contained 24 brick-sized blocks of memoran which were 
very lightweight due to the material's amazing properties. He took one 
of the blocks and, using a laser torch, welded it directly onto the 
inside of the armour panel. As soon as he melted the two together the 
block began to flow into the larger panel until it was all absorbed. 
Each block was equivalent to one percent of a standard panel. Memoran 
armour was a very useful technology, yet it would cause trouble in the 
future. 

Though Phantom was quickly repaired and continued on her way, she left
behind fragments of her armour, blown free by the blast. When a 
Megaeran vessel went to investigate the sighting by the drone it found 
these pieces, and they told their story. Phantom had been made at the 
Martian shipyards, made from material mined in the asteroid belt 
between Mars and Jupiter. This would not have been important if the 
memoran in Phantom's armour was pure, but nothing in this universe is 
pure. The fragments of memoran, when taken to a lab, revealed certain 
trace isotopes which Megaeran scientists had detected in human 
starships. There was only one conclusion to be drawn, the invisible 
ships were of human origin. 

This conclusion was not in itself strategically dangerous to the
alliance, but fate had conspired to deal the Megaerans a fortunate 
hand. Not so long ago 800 POW's had been repatriated and one had 
something of great importance. The prisoners had been denied anything 
which might be of strategic value should they return home, but one had 
used all his guile to obtain a human book on astrology. The Anduril 
guards had little knowledge of the subject and fatefully granted his 
request. The prisoner was a skilled navigator and memorised a 
star-chart within the book. When he returned home the information was 
used to calculate where the human's homeworld was and crucially they 
learned that Earth was not within the Anduril' sphere of guard 
stations. With the human home world located and the threat of invisible 
ships upon them, it was clear the time to strike had come. 

Meanwhile, unaware of the shockwaves their few fragments of hull would
presently send through the Megaeran navy, Phantom continued with her 
mission. It was slim pickings. They patrolled the assigned area until 
fuel demanded a return home but engaged only a single (albeit large) 
convoy. The ship followed it for two days, picking off targets when 
possible, before an escort arrived and they were forced to withdraw. 

Phantom was unaware of the rapidly accelerating chain of events which
they themselves had helped set in motion until they were almost at the 
border. Archer received a message telling her that Athens had fallen 
into enemy hands and ordering the ship to re-direct to Messiah with all 
possible speed for a rendezvous with the first fleet. 


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