MVOTHT Ch 11

INTERLUDE : BEACH HEAD Planet 2

Admiral Mc Elligott was standing next to Lt Har-Hi overlooking the sub surface ship assembly bay on Bridgehead 2. A black ship still halfway surrounded by auto-assembly scaffolding, bathed in brilliant work lights in its center. An army of robots and workers busy to put the final touches on the new ship. Har Hi smiled as he saw the tiny silvery figure all busy floating around the aft section, supervising everything. Elligott put his hands o the railing." He does take his job serious, I got to admit!" Har-Hi still smiling." I doubt twenty Y'All could pull him off his engines." "Well she should be done by the time your Captain arrives." "I wonder what she says if she sees that monster. It turned out a tad bigger than before." "It still has some of the original Components. SHIP is there as well as the Janus Device. It was simply easier to build her new than bring all the parts over. She looks the same, just now she's a small Battleship." "Sir can I ask why did you rebuild her bigger? The original wasn't all that seriously damaged." "Three reasons, Mr. Har Hi. First you might run into bigger problems out here, with less chance of getting back up. Secondly, because of you we have the Nul, the Golden and the Micro-Terrans in the Union and they insisted in providing their cutting edge technology in a new prototype ship, besides a few Celtest Surprises, courtesy of Lieutenants Suit and Ghost. And finally because if we send you out in a new Galaxy who knows what you guys drag back home, maybe the new Tigershark won't be big enough to fit them all in!" A small floating disc appeared with two tiny humans none taller than maybe 10 centimeters approached and stopped before the two in eye level. An amplifier device on the floater made the two easily understood." Admiral, we are on schedule and ready. the Tigershark is now the first full sized ship with the largest TD-Gun Batteries we ever assembled. " "Thank you Dr. Isah-nine. " A Nul stomped up the platform and adjusted his purple robe, over his gray skin. " I must say Terran and Nul Engineers work well together. " The Admiral bowed slightly. "Indeed your Majesty. Your son will be here shortly and be surprised to find you here!" The Nul Monarch exposed his horrifying maw and rows of teeth and laughed." I wanted to be the first Nul to go across your famous Bridge." "It is yours now as well. What I never thought possible, but the Nul are Union now!" "Indeed. Well I was technically not the first Nul, but the first Gray who made it. I also wanted to supervise to make sure this new ship gets the best in Nul Technology. We are not behind in everything." "Not by a long shot your Majesty. Your Gravi Tech was of grave concern to us before and now that we know of it first hand, I realize we weren't concerned enough." "You will find the Nul to be as fierce allies as we have been enemies." "That is evident your Majesty, in the unprecedented cooperation we are already experiencing." The Nul ruler also leaned against the railing and looked towards the ship. " The recent developments and growth of the Union did not make everyone happy. The Shiss are now openly talking to the Kermac. Not that this concerns me much, open war is unlikely and neither the Shiss nor the Kermac are trustworthy allies and whatever pact they agree upon it will be broken sooner or later." "There is also the Scanner Data we analyzed from the Tigershark's first voyage and the massive data from the Golden. There was quite some traffic in the Core Ward sector. We still know little about the Core- and Down ward sectors and we are already in a new Galaxy, barley opened the door and who knows what awaits us here." The Nul nodded."Then we will face them together. " He suddenly yelled in an enormous voice down." You Nubssu Scrubs! Be careful with those!" To the Admiral he said." Nul are still a bit clumsy sometimes!" He turned and stomped back down and Har Hi and the Old Admiral watched the ruler of the mighty Nul put hands on guiding some sort of Cannon Housing into a turret socket. The little Terrans also returned to their work The Admirals Com piece beeped and he opened the call in front of everyone. Admiral Stahl appeared and even though it was a Holo from over 2 million light years away, it was obvious he was angry." You might want to take this in private! " The other Admiral almost barked. Elligott sighed as he knew something serious had happened but he said." Only a friend here who can hear what you got to say. "I just got report of a Prison break. First I had no idea we had a Prison called Fort Bennings and second I am appalled by the lax security measures there, but what really gets me is hearing who escaped! Two men I thought would be dead!" Elligott also became serious." You are my friend for a very long time, and you are one of the most high ranking officers, but even to you there are Need to know areas. Corrections and Prisoner management are not among those. Now just tell me what happened and who escaped?" " Prisoners Evok Stalman, Nator Meateater, Calvin Five and Alvin Stone. You know Pirate Meateater and former Commander Stone. I was there when he received his death penalty! Why is he still alive?" Mc Elligott became visibly pale." Did you say Calvin Five?" "Yes, but I don't know who he is." "A very dangerous individual. I guess we better exchange information. Tell me how they escaped and I tell you why they are still alive and why Calvin Five is bad news!" "Apparently one of the Guards allowed one of the prisoners to do chores and he gained access to a GalNet terminal. From there he downloaded a virus program and fed it somehow into the local Computronic. They then escaped using space suits and a Work Drone that pulled them to a GalNet Repeater Buoy. They created a system failure, GalCom sends out a Service man complete with Service Ship. They killed a guard, the GalNet service man and they found Evok Stalman in the Repeater station dead as well, obviously he got into an argument with the others and lost, since the service ship had only room for three. the Service Man leaves a family with kids behind! What the investigators can't tell me is how the two hope to escape from the Bridge. They have no CITI'S." " Evok Stalman is a very talented, genius level Genetic Engineer, he was sentenced to 60 years after experimenting on sentient beings he bought on the slave market. Nator Meateater was kept alive because his death sentence was commuted after he helped to locate a secret pirate base and thus free many slaves. Alvin Stone was kept alive because he is the only person as far as we know who knows who the Purple Worm is. As a former Officer his mind was conditioned and neither brain dump nor Psionics would help. He had given us much information regarding the Worm organization in return for a long term sentence. Calvin Five is like us, Richard. He is an Immortal. He became insane, criminally insane. He has an incredible high IQ of at least 400, he has altered his own DNA and went through many bionetic and cybernetic surgeries. He is super strong, superfast and super smart. He has no scruples and kills out of a whim. He was responsible for the Palhar Massacre and several other heinous crimes. All this happened during your absence, Peter Baker our old Ranger friend caught him and we locked him away ever since. I could not order his death since I did not know if he has completed his task o if it was still to do. The Guardian seemed to know who he picked, so did not dare to kill an immortal." Stahl was still angry." We are not above the laws! Neither you not me, nor any of the Immortals. If he killed and did all this then he needed to die, like any other criminal." "I can't say you are wrong. Calvin Five was mostly in suspended animation for the last 520 years. Why he was reanimated I don't know, but if Stone knows the Worm then he is high up that Organization and getting a CITI and new identities is probably not difficult for them. " "Splendid! You know you are ultimate responsible for anything they do! Neither man would be around if I had anything to say in that matter. I think you need to explain all that to the pregnant Widow on Midway too!" Stahl did not even wait for a response and switched off. Elligott did not look happy at all. Har-Hi said." If you need my help Sir, I am at your disposal." The old Admiral sighed deeply. " He was right you know. I am responsible. Sometimes I think this old Warrior friend of mine is a little to righteous and straight forward and then in times like this, I wish I could be more like him. To Stahl everything is black or white and his view hasn't changed in all this time." "Sir I cannot judge the reasons or motives of such as you, but if I might be so frank to suggest we first deal with the problem and then see who's to blame and who's not. Erica will soon be here and with her comes Narth and Shea. With those two we might find a trace and track those down!" "You are very wise my young friend. Let's see what we can do to limit the damage they can do and now I am going to make a call and see if I can do something for that widow."