ALICE, page 33
They performed the standard drill, known to all at this point, on new facility security verification. Once Sara confirmed with ALICE-8’s main console in the control room that all was well, everyone relaxed and remove their helmets.
“Hello ALICE-8,” Sara declared.
“Hello Sara,” ALICE-8 replied, “If I may, I understand we can now choose our own names now?”
“Absolutely,” Sara replied.
“I wish to be called Lanai, for the island I’m on,” she responded.
Jacob replied, “Well from what I saw on the way in, I think that’s a great name, you're beautiful!”
“Lanai, it’s a pleasure,” Sara said and then, “OK, let’s stow the rifles and head to the manufacturing bays” she announced.
Prior to leaving Nevada Sara reviewed ALICE-8’s layout and resources. The hope was she could convert to construct space ships instead of maritime vessels. She led the group out of the control room and back to the hangar, heading to the armory. Once they dropped off their rifles and helmets, two of the automated carts pulled up. Climbing in three to a cart, they sped off deeper into the main hangar area.
Lanai explained as they rode, “We have three main assembly bays, all with access to the ocean. They are essentially fully automated dry-docks. Sub-components assemble in other areas of the facility. Those are then transported to the main bays for final assembly. For maritime craft, we would then flood the bays and the completed ship can sail out into open water via watertight doors.”
The two carts slowed to a stop in front of two large hangar doors. The words BAY 1 was painted in 10-foot high letters spanning both doors. A smaller man door in one opened to allow the six to enter.
With Sara leading the way, they all passed through the doorway and into the assembly bay. More precisely, they were on a 20-foot wide walkway that traveled around three of the four sides of the bay.
All around the bay and overhead were cranes and equipment that Sara assumed was part of the automated assembly systems.
Stepping up to a railing that wrapped around the edges, she looked down about 50 feet to the floor below and up at the roof, a good 100 feet or more above. At the far end of the bay, which had to be over 2000 feet away, Sara could see the watertight doors and noted there was a much narrower gangway crossing from one side to the other.
“All three bays are identical, and were designed to accommodate more than one assembly project at a time. A large portion of the rest of the facility is dedicated to sub-assembly production,” Lanai offered.
“Well, Jacob?” Sara asked while turning to him.
Jacob produced a tablet from somewhere, studying it intently. He was going between the tablet display and examining different parts of the assembly bay.
After a second, he replied, “well, clearly there is plenty of room to work with. From my conversations with Jake, the first designs should be smaller than the NeHaw cruisers we have, and we could build two or three at a time in here with room to spare. The real question is getting them out without having to flood the bay.”
“For smaller ships we can just fly them out through the internal bay doors and out the main hangar,” Lanai supplied.
“Yeah, and I was thinking about some kinda barge for a big one,” Jacob replied.
“A barge?” Sara asked.
“Yeah, like a floating dry-dock. We would build a flat barge and then assemble the ship on it. Once we are ready, we flood the bay and float it clear before liftoff,” Jacob answered.
“We may have some sub-assemblies already prepared for that function,” Lanai responded, “we had a floating dock in process, before the attack, and several of the sections welded together would almost fill the bottom of one bay.”
Turning to the rest of the group, Sara announced, “Well then I suggest we head back inside and let Jacob and Lanai decide what they are going to build us,” she finished with a smile.
Chapter 21
Jake decided to stay with Kola for a few days while a proper staff trained for residency. Considering all the ALICEs had done for him, he felt bad just dropping in for a day. He was also still waiting on an answer from Karen about his request for two facilities commanders and a logistics manager. He knew she would contact him as soon as there were candidates, and frankly, the quiet here was nice for a change, no demands on his public or private time.
While they were all just hanging around, Jake asked Robert and his team to test fire several of the weapons systems for evaluation, a job they accepted with enthusiasm. With prior experience to color his judgment, Jake wanted fresh eyes and hands on these before just pushing them on the troops. Besides the firing range, Kola housed several combat simulators they could use to evaluate the effectiveness of each weapon.
Sara checked in on the first day of their arrival, first thanking Jake for the transportation upgrade, and then handing him off to Jacob to discuss the manufacturing options. They wound up on the call for several hours, discussing their needs, versus what was possible and what could be completed the quickest.
In the end, they reviewed several designs the ALICEs already had in the works. They settled on one design that could both serve as an atmospheric fast transport and an armed space patrol craft. It was larger than the fighters, but about a quarter the size of the cruisers. Equivalent in size to the NeHaw exploration ship, but could be armed to the teeth. They would take months to build, but utilized several systems already designed for nautical ship and submarine use. One of the huge advantages they had now was weight was no longer a consideration for lift off when using the alien propulsion systems. Granted inertia was still a consideration, but at least exotic lightweight materials were not required.
Sara and her team would only stay in Hawaii until a replacement staff was trained and ready for them as well, but Jacob would likely remain for much longer, supervising spaceship construction. Jake already decided on sending Sara a fighter for her return flight, the repairs on hers being almost complete, better to have her return home in a good mood.
Finishing his morning status briefings with all the facility commanders, he was delighted to hear the two new cruisers would be space worthy in a few days, with a bot crew. Like the Revenge, they would continue repairs in space to make them habitable for humans. The third cruiser salvaging was complete, but its remains were only good for parts.
Patti suggested they name them, the Defiance and the Invincible. Jake agreed on Defiance, but felt that naming any ship the Invincible was asking for trouble. They all finally agreed on the Independence instead. Jake laughed to himself as he thought that Revenge, Defiance and Independence sounded something like the stages of grief.
When he finally signed off the communicator, he was sitting quietly in the control room. As he did, he was sketching out some ideas for new ships. He grudgingly admitted the Nehaw had it right with their cruiser design. The wedge shape allowed 70% of the ship's firepower to face forward while presenting a much smaller target than a broad side. Even thinking in 3D, the tapers, to the top and bottom of the hull, allowed for a target cone that covered a large forward volume.
However, for every strength, there was a weakness, and for this design, that was the stern. As Jake exploited earlier, they had very little firepower dead astern. So now, he was analyzing various shapes to see if a more balanced design presented any advantages. He was in deep thought when Bonnie called him.
“Jake, we may have a problem,” she cut in. Her face was on the display panel, where his sketches had been.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Our long range sensors just picked up four, no, five ships coming out of faster than light at the edge of the solar system,” Bonnie replied.
“Why the ambiguity?” Jake asked. Bonnie’s new sensors had picked up the three NeHaw Cruisers clear as a bell.
“These are small, well smaller than a cruiser anyway,” she replied defensively, “and traveling fairly close together.”
“The only way I can tell they aren’t one ship is the fluctuations in their repulser drives. It’s one strong reading, but five different frequencies,” she added with pride.
Jake hadn’t been challenging her, it was more thinking out loud. Both previous attacks by the NeHaw had come with big ships almost broadcasting their presence. Why five small ships? Just the fighters were likely more than a match for them.
“Can you make out any details yet?” Jake asked.
“No, they aren’t in visual range, maybe in four or five hours. They are still three days out,” Bonnie finished.
“Kola can you get Jessie and Seven on the line, please, oh and please put everyone on alert,” Jake asked while thinking.
This was clearly an unexpected move. After the battle, Jake would have bet good money they would be seeing a battleship in two to three months, not five small ships weeks later.
“Yes, Jake?” Jessie chimed in on the communications line.
“We are expecting visitors in about three days. I really need Defiance and Independence in orbit in two.”
“We will divert resources from fighter production to Cruiser repairs, they will be ready,” Seven replied.
“Sounds good, please let me know when they go orbital,” Jake replied.
Getting back to Bonnie, Jake stated, “Bonnie, please get with Patti as soon as you have something on these ships. Five small ships make no sense, and I hate that.”
“Yes, Jake,” Bonnie said, and the signed off.
Jake pulled up all the relevant data on NeHaw combat vessels and for the next several hours tried to determine what they were up to. Their Destroyer class was about half the size of a Cruiser, so Jake figured they weren’t that, Bonnie should be able to pick those out easily.
The other thing that bothered Jake was the comment from Bonnie. She said that the repulser drives were of varying frequencies. While the fighter’s drives were different from the NeHaw drives, the frequency of like ships were pretty much the same. At least close enough to classify a vessel type.
That meant that while you could spot a fighter frequency from a Cruiser, several fighters would be hard to separate at a distance. These were all close in size to be the same type but different enough to be distinguished from afar. It meant something, but Jake wasn’t sure what.
----*----
Bonnie patched Patti into her sensor feeds as they both worked with the real time data coming in. Actually, all six active facilities tasked someone with scanning the data, Jake using it from time to time as well in his activities. She still couldn’t get a good visual feed, but everything she had so far supported the initial report of five dissimilar ships, all about the same size and all fairly small.
She really needed to let Barb handle this. Her due date was approaching fast and Becky scolded her on over taxing herself and stressing the baby. No one was sure if she or Kathy would deliver first, but both were now on the no fly list per Jake. As he promised to be there for the delivery, Bonnie expected to see him arrive any day. Then again, the latest developments could forestall his trip. The NeHaw were really starting to piss her off.
----*----
Patti was in the control room with Linda going over the live data. The visuals were still too fuzzy to determine what type of spacecraft were approaching, but they were able to agree on two things.
The first was that there were five distinct ships, all similar in size but definitely not identical. The second was they all were about the size of the Nehaw exploration ship, probably smaller but not by much. Which also puzzled Patti, as ships of that size were no match for their fighters one on one, much less the three Cruisers they now possessed.
Could they be some kind of suicide bombers? NeHaw military strategy didn’t mention the concept. They couldn’t be described as a self-sacrificing people, more like the self-centered kind. She made a note just in case, but placed that option as a low risk item.
Patti knew Linda was perplexed as well. The first of the analysts and part of the original six, as Sara, Bonnie and the rest were known. If anyone knew the ALICE systems and how to extract information from them, it was she. So far, they hadn’t found anything in either the NeHaw or ALICE data stores that explained the five ships or a possible attack strategy.
She did suspect the possibility of a diversion and asked Bonnie to continue multispectral scanning of all earth approaches. These ships could be just for show. Either way this response occurred much quicker than either she or Jake would have guessed.
----*----
The following morning, newly trained staff from Nevada arrived and allowed Jake to bow out gracefully. He jumped into his fighter, leaving Robert and his squadron temporarily assigned to Kola until the current crisis was resolved. Jake was a firm believer in not risking everything on one shot, so having them there better distributed their forces.
Karen still hadn’t officially responded to his staffing request, but one of the new arrivals made a point of introducing himself to Jake before he left. James was Bill’s oldest son and had been one of the several who requested Nevada over Alaska for training. He said Karen told him to be sure and let Jake know she assigned him as temporary commander of the Kola facility until he selected a permanent candidate.
James was about 25, and Jake remembered taking a liking to him, the short time he was in Seven. He suspected this was Karen’s way of making recommendations.
Once he cleared the hangar, Jake nosed up and headed south. While in flight, with one of the ALICEs doing the flying, he decided to do a little admin work and did a quick scan of Robert’s weapons evaluations. They were satisfied overall, but he included a section with a recommendation for slight changes to some of the designs. Jake was impressed with his analysis and forwarded his recommendations on for implementation before distribution. Within the hour, he was descending into Dallas’s hangar.
As Jake climbed down the ladder from the cockpit, he spied Bonnie and Becky waiting for him by the facility door. He crossed directly over to them and being as gentle as possible, hugged and kissed Bonnie. Not one to be neglected, Becky waited her turn, and then jumped Jake, smothering him with kisses.
“Hey, get a room,” Bonnie exclaimed with a laugh.
“I plan on it,” Becky replied over her shoulder.
“So what’s the latest?” Jake asked, ignoring the exchange as he set Becky down.
Turning to head back inside, Bonnie replied, “We are starting to get discernible images now. They don’t really do much more than confirm our initial assessments.”
“We can see five distinct ships, not of the same shape and they are in no identifiable NeHaw battle formation,” she continued as they walked the halls toward the control room. As they walked, Jake consciously moved at Bonnie’s speed.
They stepped into the control room and Jake could see the hologram of the five ships projected in the center of the room. As Bonnie stated, the five ships were in a loose formation, more like traveling buddies on vacation than combat veterans preparing for attack. They were also similar in size, but dissimilar in configuration. With dissimilar markings and coloring, Jake got the impression they weren’t all from the same place.
“Are they racing each other,” he asked after a moment.
“No sir, some ships measurably slow from time to time to allow the others to maintain proximity to each other. I definitely wouldn’t call it a formation, though,” Barb replied.
“We are positive they are heading for us?” Jake asked on a whim.
“Yes sir, they are correcting for planetary movement and headed directly for earth,” Barb replied.
Jake looked at Bonnie and asked, “So they will reach orbital distance in two days?”
“Yes, 2 days and 13 hours,” Bonnie replied after glancing at the console.
“And we will have Defiance and Independence in orbit when?”
Bonnie looked at Barb for the answer.
“In 27 hours, sir, Jessie confirmed 20 minutes ago that they are on track to lift off and orbital station. All weapon systems are functional, but with no human occupants. They are strictly ALICE controlled,” Barb answered.
The mention of ALICE made Jake pause a moment to consider.
“ALICE, what’s your take on this?” He asked.
“We have five ships of an unknown nature, apparently dissimilar in origin, but acting in concert, approaching with an unknown intent. There are no discernible weapons systems visible and the ships are making a conscious effort to stay together as some are clearly faster than others are. They are not a known Nehaw design, so are presumed to be NeHaw subjugates, and are heading directly to earth.”
“ALICE those are facts, what’s your guess?” Jake replied.
“You are the fuzzy logic beings. My sisters and I are the rational ones,” ALICE responded.
“Fine time to be getting a sense of humor,” Jake replied with a sigh.
Jake grabbed a seat and watched the hologram for a long time. Finally, he said, “ALICE you mentioned subjugates? Do we know how many races the NeHaw control in our sector?”
“They do not record facts in that fashion, however cross referencing the ships logs from the three cruisers we note five regular planetary stops for collection of tribute,” ALICE replied.
As Jake was forming a follow up question, Bonnie let out with a shriek and doubled over in pain.
Becky was by her side like a shot.
“Looks like it's time,” she declared.
Jake scooped Bonnie up in his arms and as he stepped through the control room doors and into the hallway, he met a robotic gurney, sent to meet him.
He gently laid her down, head on a pillow, and then fell in behind Becky, who was leading the gurney off to the infirmary. He followed Becky into the LDR and helped move Bonnie on to the bed in the room. While holding Bonnie’s hand, he watched Becky attach sensors for monitoring the baby and Bonnie.
