ALICE, page 31
“Jake they are trying to call home,” Patti said with a smile while monitoring the sensor panel.
“ALICE, are you blocking that and tracking the transmission vector?” Jake asked.
“All wavelengths are jammed and vector recorded Jake,” ALICE replied.
“Gotcha!” Jake said.
----*----
“Sir, we are unable to raise Home planet,” the communication officer announced.
Jamming? How is that possible, no race had ever been able to block NeHaw communications? Then RaBok saw the answer floating in space in front of him. No race ever had access to NeHaw military tech before.
Backed into a corner, RaBok knew his time was up.
“All weapons, fire at the Cruiser!”
----*----
“Jake they are powering up again,” Patti said.
As she finished, all three cruisers fired on the Revenge. Jake held his breath as he watched, the newly installed stasis shields holding off the combined firepower of all three cruisers.
“ALICE, how’s she holding up?” Jake asked.
“60% of failure threshold, it’s better than expected. Two more ships would put us in danger,” she replied.
----*----
ReBok called out, “halt fire,” then stared at the undamaged cruiser floating as before.
Had the universe gone mad? They couldn’t even destroy their own ship. As he pondered his next move, short of turning to run from this insane planet, his tactical officer shouted “Sir!” while pointing out the bridge window.
The last thing RaBok saw was, the gun platforms streaming white fire, and the bridge windows exploding outward into space.
----*----
No more games, Jake thought, as he ordered ALICE to take the bridges out on all three cruisers. He had his answers as well and didn’t need to push their luck any further.
They all watched as all three cruisers belched out debris and bodies. Suddenly, one of the cruisers lurched violently and pivoted out of formation. It appeared to straighten out and then exploded, shooting pieces of hull in all directions.
“What was that?” Patti asked.
“Sorry Jake, apparently someone in engineering was attempting to run with that ship,” ALICE replied, “we prevented its escape.”
“I’ll say” Jake said with a laugh.
The plan was for the forward guns to disable the cruisers as Jake had done before by evacuating the bridge. It was pure luck last time that no one in the engineering section had been able to pilot the ship. To prevent that this time, they had dispatched the four unmanned fighters to breach the hulls in the engineering sections as well.
Just their luck, some NeHaw engineer went to combat suited up, he thought.
“Well granddaughter, how did we do?” Jake asked Patti as he moved beside her chair.
“I’d say right on target, not our best possible results, but far better than the worst,” she said smiling and standing to give Jake a hug.
“Jake, we have a problem,” ALICE announced, “Sara’s fighter was in the cruiser blast zone, and it was hit by debris.”
Without a word, Jake spun on his heels and ran for the hangar. The elevator ride seemed to last forever.
“Is she alive?” he asked in the elevator on the way up.
“Her ship is completely unresponsive and I am getting no data at all,” ALICE replied.
Jake wore his flight suit that morning, despite everyone’s assurances it was unnecessary. As he strapped into his fighter, his helmet on his lap, he asked ALICE to lift off for him.
Once it cleared the hangar, he took over control and headed straight for Sara’s last know position.
“Jake, I have the others looking for her, but she’s not where she should be. Most likely the explosion pushed her out of orbit,” ALICE supplied.
“ALICE, do we have any video covering that part of space prior to or during the explosion?” Jake asked.
“Searching now,” she replied.
Jake reached the search area by the time ALICE replied.
“I have located one small video segment.”
She played the clip for Jake. It showed Sara’s fighter, and as the cruiser exploded, a section of hull plate spun free, slicing through the side of her fighter. It cut the cockpit right off the body, sending it in a slow spin out into space.
Jake’s heart sank as he watched it pass out of the camera view.
“ALICE can you calculate that vector?” Jake asked quickly.
“Jake,” she started to reply.
“PLEASE!” he shouted.
“Calculating,” she replied quietly.
“Adding ALICE-2.”
“Adding ALICE-5.”
“Adding ALICE-8.”
Then he heard, “Solution derived and loaded into your navigation system.”
“Thanks,” he replied as he hit the autopilot.
His fighter surged off away from the planet as he watched the sensor display looking for any indication of Sara’s cockpit section. He watched for what seemed like hours, but was only 15 minutes.
“Jake we are detecting no traces of Sara, no emissions whatsoever.”
Jake ignored the transmission and continued on his course. Twenty minutes later ALICE said, “Jake you have just past the calculated intercept point for the extreme estimate.”
Jake continued to scan his instruments and the surrounding space. On a whim, he halted his fighter and just sat in space, putting his fighter in a slow, stationary, flat spin.
He stopped the spin when he noticed a slow flicker on his left, heading in his general direction. At first, he wasn’t sure what he had seen, but sure enough, it was a slow regular flash.
He headed in that direction and slowly came up on the severed cockpit section of Sara’s fighter.
“I’ve found her!” he transmitted.
“Is she alive?” ALICE asked in return.
Jake slowly moved his fighter until it was just outside the spin radius. Using an external light, he lit up the wreckage in time to see Sara flipping him off as she rotated past.
“YUP! Alive and bitchy as ever,” he replied.
“ALICE, how do I get her outta here?” Jake asked.
“Your best option is to get her out of the wreckage, and then pick her up in free space,” she replied.
Jake grabbed his pilot’s notepad and wrote out his directions. Killing the external light, he lit up the pad and held it up for Sara to see as she rotated past.
“JUMP,” was on the pad.
He laughed as she flipped him off again and then proceeded to open her canopy manually. Once open, she waited until she rotated passed and shoved herself free, floating away from the wreckage. Jake had already opened his canopy and Sara grabbed the edge as he carefully maneuvered near her. Pulling her inside and onto his lap, he closed the canopy and re-pressurized the cockpit, then pulled his helmet off.
Removing her own helmet, she kissed him hard and said, “Damn, you’re a sight for sore eyes!”
“You scared the crap outta me,” he replied.
“It didn’t do my panties any good either,” she laughed with tears in her eyes.
Reaching around Sara, Jake hit the reverse navigation function, and the fighter rotated on a reverse course for home.
Jake held her tight all the way back, as they weren’t strapped in, then asked ALICE to pilot them in to insure a smooth reentry. Once back in the hangar, ALICE placed the fighter near the facility door and in front of a huge welcoming committee. The entire facility plus the returned Red Devils was waiting for them.
“Oh My God,” was all Linda could say, crying as she hugged Sara after she climbed down.
Jake watched from the fighter seat as the group swamped Sara. He took a deep breath, not wanting to do anything but collect Sara up and head to his room, but there was still a mess to clean up.
“ALICE,” he said from his seat.
“Yes, Jake.”
“Thank You!”
“I am not going to tell you the statistical improbability you just overcame,” she replied.
“Like Patti says, that’s why we need each other,” he replied.
“On a lighter note,” ALICE replied, “we have established control over the two remaining Cruisers. We needed to dispatch attendants from the Revenge to secure navigation for one and drive control on the other. No life forms remained on either craft and they will be landed and refitted by Seven.”
“Make sure she adds the rail guns,” Jake said.
“Duly noted and endorsed,” ALICE replied.
“All squadrons have returned to their bases of origin, however, I took the liberty of reassigning the Death Rattler’s to Seven until human pilots are ready.”
“Good deal,” Jake said.
“What should we do about the Revenge and the gun platforms?” ALICE asked.
“Unless we need them elsewhere, let them stay where they are for now. They make a hell of a ‘beware of dog’ sign,” he said laughing.
At that, he climbed out of the fighter and joined the crowd.
----*----
That Sara was sleeping with Jake that night a foregone conclusion. Even Patti deferred any conversations on the day’s outcome until the following morning, no matter how badly she wanted to debrief and compare her theories to the actual outcome.
While everyone else celebrated, Jake and Sara shared a private dinner in his quarters, discussing anything but the battle and Sara’s second near death experience. Afterwards, they made love late into the night.
As they lay in bed the following morning, Sara’s head resting on Jake’s chest, she said, “Jake, I want to have a baby.”
“Honestly, I can’t understand how you’re not pregnant now?” He replied softly.
“ALICE put me on medication to prevent it,” she replied with a sniffle, “we agreed, remember, that I was more important as your XO.”
Jake lifted her head to kiss her and then said, “Well then I guess it’s time to change the agreement.”
“ALICE,” Jake asked softly.
“Yes, Jake,” ALICE replied in fashion.
“No more birth control for Sara please?”
“It was stopped last night,” ALICE replied.
Jake could feel Sara crying, her head on his chest, so he just held her.
Chapter 20
For the next few day's everyone’s time split between cleaning up the mess and celebrating. With the after action reviews and battle analysis to do, Patti was completely swamped and as happy as she could be. Replacing Sara as squadron commander of the Black Knights was a top priority, the official reason being an expected pregnancy. Privately, everyone knew Jake said no more adventures for her!
Linda, Jessie, Bonnie and Sharon were all busy managing their respective facilities and negotiating personnel transfers to balance the staff between the four locations. Everyone was on recruiting watch, looking for new candidates in their areas of responsibility.
The squadrons were all on a rotating space duty, performing debris recovery. Recovery of all pieces of the destroyed NeHaw cruiser still in orbit became a priority. All parts ferried to the Revenge for scavenging by the resident bots. Once the hold was full, it made a delivery to Seven and then returned to orbit. They also recovered the back half of Sara’s fighter and returned it for a rebuild.
Jake and Sara did finally get around to discussing her mishap. They were having dinner in the quarter’s level dining room with Linda, Kathy and several of the pilots who retrieved her fighter’s wreckage.
“You shoulda seen it Sara, it looked like someone sliced it in half with a knife,” one of the pilots said.
“Oh, I saw every moment,” she replied.
“Oh yeah,” one of the women asked, “Weren’t you scared?”
“Terrified!” she replied.
“But Jake says you flipped him off when he found you?” another asked lightly.
“Yes, I was pissed and in an adrenaline rush. I think I screamed about bloody time or something like that!” she said with a laugh.
“At first, I was scared to death as I went spinning off into space. Then I got sad thinking I would never see anyone again.”
She was looking at Jake as she spoke the last.
“Then I got mad as hell that this happened to me, just some freak accident. When the exterior light hit me, I was really happy and angry at the same time. And when I saw the red nose on the fighter, I knew only my Jake flew anything so outlandishly garish!” she finished with a grin and tears in her eyes.
Jake could see that Linda noticed the “my Jake” as he had. Usually they all tended to be extra careful about any exclusivity statements. Either Sara let it slip or she was sending a message. Regardless they both chose not to comment on it.
“Hey, can I join you?” Patti said as she walked up to the table, dinner tray in hand, and slid in next to Sara.
“So you finally pried yourself away from the control room?” Linda asked.
“I was going cross-eyed!” she replied, “If I had to look at one more video I was going to scream.”
“What video?” one of the pilots asked.
“She’s doing the after action analysis,” Jake supplied.
He looked down a table of blank stares.
Jake continued, “After every engagement we do an analysis and an after action report to see what we did right and where we guessed wrong or need improvement. Your future training will come from her work,” he finished.
At that, he got several nods of understanding and someone added, “How did we do?”
“We did a pretty good job,” Patti supplied, taking a bite.
“We cheated a bit because we had their play book in advance,” she added, “the real test will be the next round as we are hitting uncharted territory.”
“Next round?” one of the pilots asked.
“I hope no one thinks this is over?” Jake asked to the group, “because we just became the intergalactic equivalent of Israel.”
Back were the blank stares.
“God, I need to get more history added to the education programs,” Jake said exasperated.
“Look, in my time, there was a small country in the Middle East called Israel. Due to conflicting religious beliefs with their immediate neighbors and a dispute over the land they occupied, they had a constant battle just to survive. Their neighbors were committed to their total destruction. They developed a very efficient military machine and everyone in the country did their part to support it.”
Patti added, “The point is, we have bested them twice now and at a sector level. Apparently no other civilization has managed that in recent times, or recent enough that their command reference documentation doesn’t specify next steps.”
“Their basic approach is one of escalation. Start with one ship and then go to three more ships from that sector. Next, divert ships from the adjoining sectors and so on. Both Jake and I have pulled their reference material apart and our best guess is they may combine 3 to 4 sector’s forces and try again, that’s 12 to 16 ships. However, that leaves four sectors without ships patrolling, a very large piece of unprotected space and one exposed to rebellion.”
“The other NeHaw option is to bring in one of their Battleships, which we haven’t been able to determine a true size for yet. The only references surround space battles and races we have no information on.”
“We, on the other hand, are in possession of three of their Cruisers. With the addition of our stasis shields, they are capable of a 4 to 1 force correlation. And they have no defenses for our rail guns,” Jake supplied with a smile.
“And don’t forget the ALICEs,” Kathy contributed, “they are the best secret weapon of all.”
“Hear, hear,” Jake replied.
“What are we going to do?” Someone asked.
Everyone looked at Jake, who happened to have a mouth full of lasagna.
Swallowing slowly, he said, “Short term, what we have been. Working our asses off and improving our planetary defenses. Long term we are going to take the fight to them.”
----*----
After breakfast, the following morning Jake called a meeting in the control room. He asked Sara, the ALICEs and all 4 facilities commanders, three of them virtually, to attend a meeting to help work out their short-term priorities.
Jessie and Seven informed everyone they had all their resources working to restore the two captured Cruisers and Sara’s fighter as well as continued new fighter construction. ALICE pointed out that ALICE-8, located in Hawaii, also housed automated manufacturing facilities. Admittedly, the basis of their work was around marine construction, but utilized for spaceship construction nonetheless. They could ferry any of the necessary components from Alaska that couldn’t be produced there.
Jake asked Sara to take Jacob and one of the new combat teams to go check it out and see what was possible there. As Jacob and several of the available team members weren’t trained pilots, they would have to use one of the conventional transport aircraft, probably the Falcon Jake used for the Alaska run. ALICE-8 assured everyone her hangars were fully operable and looked forward to the visit. She also assembled a list of tasks for Jacob, who, like Jason, was performing or supervising facility repairs.
Sharon indicated they located a community in eastern Washington suitable for a Prosperity type arrangement and asked for Sandy’s help. If successful, it would stabilize a large portion of Washington and Idaho, including parts of Oregon, Montana and Canada. It would also increase the pool of outsiders, they could recruit.
Jake asked about ALICE-6 in South Dakota. As a weapons research facility it, unbeknownst to Jake, provided most of the rail guns for the fighters and the platforms in space. He was aware that it contained the original alien hand held weapons and was the intended source of the combination weaponry he requested earlier. He assigned himself a trip, with a support team, to visit. He didn’t want to get caught short again. The spear guns had worked, but they weren’t his first choice in a gun fight.
Bonnie and Dallas located 10 potential recruits from Paint Rock and the surrounding communities. With Jake’s permission, they wanted to extend offers within the week. Jake’s only restriction was Bonnie didn’t leave the facility! Both she and Kathy was getting close to their delivery dates, and he didn’t want any risky behaviors from either of them. She promised to send out a couple of the combat-trained pilots from the Cowboys' squadron to make the offers.
