Return to Earth: Mike Stedman: Book 3 Read online

  Nadia sighed, “Figures, the conversation just got interesting. I need to run, be back for lunch, and Miroth.”

  She stood up and kissed him, and then Alyndra before heading back to their quarters so she could lie down and log into her android.

  Dahlia asked, “Any ideas?”

  He frowned, “Yes. We need to develop true weapons. The way we use our shields works, but as more of a side effect of our fields. We’ve all followed the way the Xarans have done it, and the Xarans are at heart a peaceful species. Right now, we have to open small apertures, and then use fields to gather all that energy at one point in the shields, like tributaries feeding into a river, and then into a large lake before firing it. But that’s really defensive in nature, it’s how we absorb and deflect subspace energies in subspace to prevent it from hitting the hull. Not really a weapon.”

  Alyndra asked, “How else would we do it?”

  He shrugged, “Leave the shields how they are, but add something as a weapon. Just off the top of my head you could have a two-level field array that focuses the fields outside of the layered shields for safety. So now you open one aperture, and the field does nothing but push it into a second field which would be in the shape of sphere, a containment field directly above it. The energy wouldn’t flow over or touch the shields at all unless there was a problem. Once the containment field reaches saturation it would fire at an enemy vessel.”

  He took a sip of coffee.

  “The advantages are obvious. One, the energy doesn’t run over the shields, it stays in one pinpoint area until it fires. Two, it’s separate from the shields, so even if the enemy hits that spot right on, the shields below it won’t be compromised. Three, on this destroyer which is a hundred yards long by fifty feet wide, you could have far more than five offensive two level field arrays. Instead of being limited to five beams at a time, there could literally be hundreds firing every couple of seconds. Of course, while being highly effective against smaller ships, they’ll be limited to pulse attacks instead of beams, so we shall have to have the old way as well to quickly carve up much larger ships.

  “I believe with that new setup though, fifty destroyers could easily take out the Canosian swarm in a shockingly short amount of time.”

  If the field drew from one spot until powerful enough and then shot out all at once, it wouldn’t be possible to sustain the beams the way running multiple flows of energy to one spot on the hull can. It would take a second or so to charge back up for another shot. Still, one large area pulse would be enough for the smaller attack fighters, and they’d be able to do hundreds at once. It was a trade off, the current way was a much better approach for larger ships where small holes wouldn’t make an impact. Even several hundred a second.

  Dahlia asked, “Are you going to go after them then, find the Canosian empire?”

  He shook his head, “No, just going to prepare for them. If they attack, then we should go after them at home, for the simple reason you can’t win a war defensively. However, I won’t be starting any wars. The offensive weapon array is something that can be easily done with current technology, just need to adapt it to a different configuration. I also think we should explore with cloaked vessels, and see if there are other threats nearby. It would be far easier to adapt to a known threat, an unknown threat is far more problematic.”

  He made a face, “That said, I don’t want to be the one to do that scouting.”

  Dahlia snickered, “You want to look around locally? Why?”

  He nodded, “Find a planet to expand to for Earth and Mars. Perhaps find new life. I also want to spend time developing things. Not just weapons either, once I figure out a way to counter the Canosian swarming attacks, which is just a matter of a little time with the idea I have. Ready to tell us why you want to come with?”

  Dahlia shrugged, “I already told you, to be an unofficial ambassador of sorts to Mars and a point of contact between our worlds. You gave me the gift of righteous battle, and you are the senator of your planet, where better to be? Especially since we are friends. Even if things are slower, and you spend a lot of time in a lab from now on. Mars is on the cutting edge of Empire tech. As for my personal reason,” she smiled innocently, “I’m not ready to tell you yet. We will speak of it after my official retirement, it wouldn’t be… appropriate before them.”

  She tilted her head, “If it matters, I like your weapon idea.”

  He wasn’t sure, the idea of developing a specific weapons platform bothered him a little. Even his father refrained from doing so because it would upset the peaceful A.I.s. Still, as long as they used it defensively and didn’t go looking for a fight it should be okay. Maybe it was something he should just do, and not talk about. Much like he suspected his father had set up a backup of all A.I.s on Earth, just in case the humans ever got themselves destroyed by the Xarans if they ever destroyed Mars.

  For him and his father, it would be something he hoped would never be necessary, for most A.I.s it was completely unthinkable. He decided he’d work on it, deploy it on his ships, and never talk about it.

  He just nodded. She’d said no to his question and changed the subject. He’d respect her privacy, but he was dying to know her other reasons. He also knew asking Alyndra would be a breach of trust, so immediately rejected the idea as soon as it occurred to him.

  “So, what’s the plan when we get to Miroth?”

  Chapter Three

  He still didn’t know what the plan was several hours later, he wasn’t even sure if they’d be invited down to the surface.

  Dahlia had disembarked as soon as they made orbit to take care of some things. All she’d been willing to indicate was she’d need some time and they may or may not be invited down to meet some people. The only thing he was sure about was that either way, Dahlia would be coming back to the ship at some point before they moved on to Selana-Esari. He did assume she was resigning from the military, but he had no idea what was involved in that process.

  Normally, at this time of day, he’d be in the arboretum playing a game of chess with Alyndra, but the old schedule around their daily battles was defunct. Right then it was him, Chrystal, Alyndra, and Nadia sitting on the bridge. The ladies were chatting, and he was half paying attention, partly wondering what Dahlia was up to, and the rest of him was designing the subspace energy weapon arrays to be added to the destroyer.

  It was a little odd, they’d have to work up a new schedule to things. Of course, they couldn’t really do it yet, since the next few days would be rather random. It didn’t really bother him all that much, but not knowing what was going on, or what was coming, was like an itch he couldn’t scratch. He wondered if that desire for order was part of his A.I. half, or his human half.

  He supposed things wouldn’t change that much with his ladies, if anything he’d have more time to spend with them now. It was filling up the time when they were in battle that had to be resolved. Normally Nadia would still be working, and Chrystal would be working on her thing in the afternoon. Making the rounds to visit their planets was throwing everything off.

  That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  He shook his head, and focused on the array. It was quite simple in design, the base field would open a connection to subspace and energy would flow out, which would be routed into a containment field. Once the containment field reached energy saturation, the field would direct the energy as a pulse at a target. A lot of the math for that was already done in the current way of doing it, and the hardware wasn’t very different, it was just the array would have more than one emitter.

  The only really new thing was the programming for the array, and working out the math. He didn’t have to invent anything there either, just run the calculations for the new approach.

  Alyndra stood and walked over, and then sat in his lap. She felt a little stiff as he put his arms around her, and then she leaned her head down to give him a soft kiss. A moment later, she seemed to relax and melt into him, and he was a l
ittle startled by her actions, she’d never done anything like it before. While very sexy and sexual in bed, Esari did not casually show affection, or were even affected by sexual impulses outside the act of sex itself.

  “Alyndra?” he asked softly.

  She replied, “I’ve seen Chrystal and Nadia do this often to express pleasure and affection. It… is strange to me outside of copulation, but since you cannot experience my mind and thoughts, I need to adapt to make it evident how I feel. Strange, but not unpleasant.”

  He wasn’t sure why, but whenever Alyndra used clinical terms like copulation, it really turned him on for some reason. He was also touched by her efforts, he didn’t want her to change herself for him, but if she felt she needed to learn to express herself physically since she couldn’t mentally, that was okay with him. He felt extremely protective of her in that moment.

  He caressed her back and ran his fingers through her silky hair, which prompted her to snuggle in even more. He smiled. It was quite… not unpleasant, as she’d indicated.

  “We’re getting a signal from the surface,” Chrystal said. When he looked over she had a soft knowing smile on her face.

  Alyndra slipped off of his lap, and went back to her seat, apparently she was ready to do that in front of family, but not in front of anyone else.

  “Answer it, on the holo-table.”

  A hologram appeared of Dahlia, and he almost choked in shock. She was wearing a bright blue sundress that seemed to hug every curve, she was stunning, and it was the first time he ever saw her out of military type dress.

  Dahlia said, “Our,” the word she used seemed to translate to leader, general, chief, and father all at the same time, “would like to invite you down to share a meal and some conversation before we depart.”

  He replied, “I’m honored at the invitation,” even as he felt a bit intimidated. He reminded himself he was practically a world leader too, and officially a senator for his world, but it didn’t really help.

  Dalia’s bright smile left him speechless, if he’d been human he would have blushed at the thoughts that ran through his head, fortunately it was her turn to talk.

  “I’ll send some coordinates, the dinner is informal, and in ninety-three minutes.”

  He found his voice, “We’ll be there.”

  Dahlia replied with a nod, and the signal cut off.

  Chrystal said, “I’m creating us all some new clothes. I’m not sure if it would be a good idea to imitate their clothes, but for us ladies it will be casual dresses which will be close enough, and for Mike…”

  He frowned as she trailed off, “For Mike?” he asked, referring to himself in the third person.

  Chrystal smiled, “I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

  He snorted.

  He looked them over, as Chrystal and Nadia smirked at him. As usual, he had no idea at all what Alyndra was thinking, and she wasn’t talking either.

  They all looked good, wearing sundresses and sandals. Chrystal looked radiant in a white sundress with flowers. Nadia wore red, and Alyndra wore a light creamy blue.

  He however, looked ridiculous. He had on a red and black kilt, with a loose buttoned down silk shirt that was open halfway down his chest. He briefly wondered if the Miroth had landed on Earth thousands of years ago, been mistaken for angels, and had a dinner party in Scotland. Surely that had to be the reason he was wearing a kilt down to an alien planet.

  Okay, that was probably wrong.

  Nadia bit her lip, “You look… handsome my love.”

  He frowned as she giggled, and Chrystal’s smirk grew larger. He’d get her back for this, somehow.

  “Ready to go?” he asked with more calm and patience than he knew he possessed. Truthfully, he really didn’t mind all that much, they didn’t tease him much and they looked like they were having fun. He wasn’t so uptight he couldn’t laugh at himself. Though, he was a bit annoyed despite all that, he wasn’t perfect after all.

  Alyndra said in her musical voice, “It makes sense if you think about it.”

  He thought about it, and it still didn’t make sense. It most definitely did not make sense to be dressed in a kilt and a silk shirt open to his navel. He felt like a cross between a Scotsman and a pirate. All he needed was a bird on his shoulder and bagpipes.

  “How so?”

  Alyndra’s voice was a bit shy sounding, though her face didn’t reflect her feelings at all.

  “Celebrations, before they leave military service and start a family and become faithful to one man or woman. Easy access for both males and females, yet they retain clothes in between. I believe after service that isn’t a consideration, so we won’t encounter that possibility tonight, but after wearing the same type of clothes the first four hundred years of their life, I imagine it’s engrained habit and what they’re comfortable with.”

  Right, of course. Easy access. Just flip up the kilt and have at it. Something not in the cultural database. This planet was insane. Alyndra was also coming through for him on her duties as advisor, she knew a lot of little things that either the Xarans didn’t know, or didn’t feel important enough to add to their database.

  “Thanks, I suppose that does make sense. You three look beautiful, are we ready to go?”

  It never hurt to compliment one’s mates.

  Nadia swayed toward him alluringly, and then smacked his ass on her way past to the door. Oh, tonight was going to be a blast. Chrystal giggled, and he refrained from glaring at the love of his life. His ladies were in a playful mood, perhaps blowing off steam from all the danger and battles being passed finally? Except for Alyndra, or at least, he couldn’t tell if she was too.

  Nadia turned her head, “Ready,” and they all followed her down to the shuttle bay on the bottom level. They all got in the shuttle, and he sat back as Chrystal flew them down to the coordinates Dahlia had provided, which happened to be inside their capitol city.

  He spared a thought for the new weapon he’d completed earlier. He was sure it would work perfectly, there was no new technology involved and subspace technology was very well understood. Still, he’d asked Chrystal to mount the new subspace weapon array on a shuttlecraft for testing before they put it on their own ship. Better safe than sorry. It would have to wait for actual testing though, it wouldn’t be prudent to test a weapon in an ally’s solar system after all.

  Chapter Four

  The capitol city on Miroth was impressive, and Chrystal was bringing them in slowly so they could get a good look at it. There were skyscrapers much like Earth’s cities, but they all seemed made of glass and crystal of various colors. The buildings were also separated more than in an Earth city, more spread out like it was in Mars. There were more trees and parks as well from what he could see. Not as much as on Mars, but much more than Earth cities.

  There were also roads on the streets as well as flying lanes, he thought the city was quite beautiful.

  “Son,” He heard in his mind.

  He sent silently, “Dad? What’s going on?”

  Ted laughed in his mind, “Does something have to be going on for me to contact you?”

  He snorted silently back, “Normally no, but me coming home in less than a few days from now means yes.”

  Ted replied, “You’re right of course, I miss you but I know your plans. I’ll get right to the point. Tensions on Earth are rising, and though they haven’t attacked any of the shuttle flights between Mars and Australia, they’ve been obnoxious and threatening to the point of escorting the flights under threat of attack if they violate the wrong airspace, and only turn away when the shuttle reaches Australian airspace. Australia has their shuttles too who have stuck their nose in as well, on our side of course.”

  His first thought was so what. They didn’t have subspace or FTL technology yet so could never get a weapon past their shields. Of course, then he realized that only meant the shuttle flights were safe while in space, subspace shields couldn’t be used in an atmosphere, it would be highl
y destructive to do so. While he believed their artificial gravity shields and emitters had to be stronger than what Earth had on their AG stuff, that wasn’t a guarantee.

  They did have much more powerful dark energy devices, but Earth could just build bigger to overcome that. It was doubtful of course, but they could have developed a large ground side emplacement with hundreds of power cores to overcome their deficiency in that area. If they even were aware they had one.

  He shook his head, “I’ve made commitments to visit on Miroth tonight, and to head toward Selana-Esari tomorrow. Did you want me to cancel on world leaders?”

  His father replied, “No, it isn’t that dire yet. I just wanted you aware, and to think about it over the next couple of days. I think something needs to be done about it, and I’m not sure I’m the right person for that job. I’m kind of persona non-gratis on Earth. I’m not even sure what can be done about it, I just know it’s a powder keg that will most likely go off soon. My guess would be the moment Australia breaks into subspace successfully.”

  He could see that happening. The rest of the world powers wouldn’t like Australia hanging out with those evil A.I.s and exploring the universe and making alien friends and deals without them. Well, evil A.I.s from their point of view, from his point of view the world leaders were just insane. An A.I. wouldn’t hurt a fly outside of self-defense, much less one of their beloved human creators. Still, it would be a major shift in world power, and he could see the other nations demanding the technology, or else.

  He sighed out loud drawing a look from the ladies.

  “Are they that close?”

  He felt his father’s mental shrug.

  “We had this conversation a couple of months ago, there’s no predicting a breakthrough. The A.I. attached to the Australian base says they are very close, and may figure out what they’re doing wrong in the next five minutes, or twenty years from now. Thing is, they already have the capability and knowledge, they just need to connect the dots.”