The Quantum Leap - Part Eight

Circular targeting reticules appeared all over the visible target area in the viewscreen, each reticule blinked red confirming weapon lock-on. “FIRING CANNONS and TORPEDOES!” A command from the helm sent Odyssey soaring forward and drifting to port over the carrier’s port side. Aaen watched as a violent pulsating flood of red, white and blue particle weapons and projectiles shot at the reticules, finding their targets and exploding brilliantly into fiery balls of metallic debris along the carrier’s dorsal hull, then port, and then around the target’s ventral hull.

“Get us outta here!” Aaen commanded.

“Adjusting defensive matrix frequency!” Odyssey passed through the carrier’s shields as though they weren’t up. Several sharp maneuvers put Odyssey on a course away from the carrier, then coming around for another pass. Aaen silently made a fist, eyeing the carrier’s coming back into the viewscreen—this time the carrier was changing course. . .coming about. The hull from stem to stern was engulfed in growing fireballs and explosions. For a moment, Aaen reasoned the carrier was about to explode in their faces, and jerked as though to give his next order—but stopped as the explosions dissipated and the metallic debris scattered in every direction.

“Confirmed direct hits from all weapons. They shouldn’t still be independently flying right now. . .”

“But they are,” Aaen said darkly and directly. Oh—shoot! The carrier was almost headed straight for them—another bad gut feeling.

“The other alien ship is still entering the area!” Jones declared.

“Change course to intercept!” Aaen commanded.

“Signal Aurora!” Smith added. “We need cover, now!”

The deck shuddered violently. A flurry of bright, loud sparks shot from over the center of the bridge. The crew struggled to stay upright and then recover to process the data flooding virtually every bridge computer screen.

Another series of violent shuddering rocked Odyssey. “REPORT!” Aaen demanded over his shoulder, struggling to tumble onto the deck from his chair.

“The carrier’s trying to lock onto us! They began trying to triangulate our location after we opened fire!”

SHOOT! Aaen shouted in the back of his mind.

“They’re gaining on us!”

“PILOT! Come hard about! Sandberg! Standby to throw everything we’ve got at them!”

“I don’t think everything we’ve got’s gonna be enough!” Sandberg replied doubtfully.

“WEAPONS RELEASE ON MY ORDER!”

The viewscreen lit up with sporadic pulses of directed particle weapon fire. “We’re closing really-dang-fast!” Jones declared in terror.

“GOOD LOCK!” Sandberg declared.

“—FIRE!”

A steady stream of weapons fire pounded the carrier head-on—after the explosions cleared. . .Aaen’s gut sank at the sight of a barely-phased target.

“Negative shield penetration!” Sandburg declared, then shouted something nearly profane.

“NOTHING?” Aaen asked in shock.

“NO-SIR! NOT ONE SHOT!” Sandberg gasped in panic.

“—The other alien ship is increasing speed! They’ve probably detected all of the shooting!”

CRAP! “AURORA!” Aaen shouted in panic, eyeing the countless weapon ports lighting up, opening and activating on the bow of the massive black beast bearing down on Odyssey.

An alarm filled the bridge, “WE’RE BLOWN!” Jones declared in shock. “THEY’VE GOT A LOCK!”

“THEIR WEAPONS OUTPUT IS OFF THE SCALE!” Sandberg shouted.

The carrier’s bow was nearly blinding—wide-eyed, Aaen rushed to his seat and shouted, “EVASIVE MANEUVERS!”

The main computer droned a weapon lock-on Odyssey.

“NEW SENSOR CONTACT AT TEN-O’-CLOCK!—HO-LY-COW!” Jones shouted at the top of her lungs as a blinding flood of pulsing light shot from the left of the viewscreen to the right Aaen barely managed to shield his eyes as he struggled to watch between his fingers as the carrier exploded in two in the most violent explosion he had ever seen. Two massive flaming black metallic chunks of hull became gradually distant from each other. The hull cross-sections burned as another ship came into view from the port—the hull was also darkly colored; the only way Aaen knew it was there was because the sheer size of the ship blocked every start that was there two seconds ago. Debris from the split hull continued to shower in every direction. The blinding light coming from the viewscreen dimmed.

“That other alien ship took some of the debris from the initial explosion,” Jones declared, “That black marketer’s making a run for it!”

Aaen took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off his forehead as he faced forward in his chair, “Match its speed! Pursuit course!”

*****

Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."

DANIEL STORM, a Jordan Foutin eBook, is available for $8.99 at any of these fine online retailers: 

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The Quantum Leap - Part Seven

“Twelve alien ships are forming up around the carrier. Their weapons are fully-powered and their shields are up,”

“Understood,” Aaen quipped. “Keep an eye on ‘em,”

“Aye, sir—hold on! The alien ships are moving! Looks like they’re heading out of the solar system,”

“Wilson?” Smith asked directly.  

“Calculating. . . Navigational readings suggest they’re on a direct heading to a sector of space we have little information about—between Union, Alnilam, and Ardosan space—roughly six thousand light years from where we launched from New Horizon,”

“Connors! Can you see if you can tap into the alien carrier’s main computer core and download as much information as you can about them?”

“I’ll see what I can do,”

“Very good,”

Wilson snapped, “We will exit the solar system with the alien convoy in one minute,”

“Acknowledged,” Smith declared directly.

“The interstellar communications interference from the solar system is getting thinner as we get closer to the edge of the system,” Hayes announced. “I’ll be able to get a mission update as soon as we’re clear!”

“—Ten seconds!” Wilson announced. “It’s getting harder to keep up with that carrier! Their engines are faster than ours,”

“Auxilary and tertiary power to the sublight engines!” Aaen commanded.

“Aye!” Connors acknowledged. The sublight engines were going to heat up faster by doing so. These engines are more efficient than what Odyssey was originally built with and was using diverted power more efficiently than before. . .

The alien escorts suddenly and rapidly drew closer to the carrier ship as the asteroids seemingly formed a tunnel-like formation around the convoy. The bridge shuddered abruptly for several seconds as the convoy soared through the asteroid belt in five seconds. Immediately, the stars were visible.

Aaen would be interested in learning more about what had just happened later but moved that curiosity into the back of his mind for the moment as he eyed the convoy shifting course almost radically to starboard and then rapidly accelerated.

“—Increasing to translight speed!” Wilson declared, watching the speed meters on his computer station suddenly rapidly spike.

“Everyone, HOLD ON!” Aaen commanded, gripping his armrests; the rest of the crew matched his actions for the next ten seconds as the stars seemingly blurred by and then disappeared amid a similar and violent storm-like effect.

The tremors in the deck calmed. Ten seconds later, Hayes computer screen flashed thrice.

“Report,” Smith demanded.

“We got a new message from New Horizon,” Hayes accessed the message and read it as fast as comprehension enabled, “Captain, we’ve got new mission orders! A General Hound is hailing us on Union Priority Frequency-Alpha, from USSC. . .Aurora, on a secure channel,”

Aurora? Aaen wondered in silence. That ship name was completely unfamiliar to him; this unfamiliarity felt like a cold chill down his spine as he commanded, “Put the Admiral on speakers,”

“On-speakers,”

“This is Captain Aaen Winter, USSC Odyssey,”

“Captain, this is General Hound. The extraterrestrial space carrier vehicle you are in pursuit of is carrying a rare, highly unstable, multi-purpose chemical element we have reason to believe is going to be sold to a third-party. Intelligence sources indicate this third party has intentions to weaponize this element and use it against The Union. The third party has been identified as an extraterrestrial black market weapons dealer named Crestax, whose homeworld is one-thousand-light-years from Earth,” a palm-sized image of the alien appeared in the center of the viewscreen and then quickly moved to the right as biographical data appeared below the image. The alien appeared as a scaly, grizzly-looking humanoid with a more pointed face. Judging by the look on the subject’s face, Aaen had no hard time believing this individual had a history with The Union. “Crestax was last known to be traveling through space on a modified scout ship he commandeered some years ago from a party that decided to back out of a deal that went sideways. If the refined Olyphium gets into Crestax’ hands, intelligence reports he has the means of turning it into a chemical weapon that could be used to permanently damage the atmospheres of any populated planet the weapons are used against. The effects on the populations of any such planets would be nearly devastating. That will not be allowed to happen. Your orders are to pursue the alien carrier ship to its destination and prevent the sale of the refined Olyphium. I know you’re out-numbered and out-gunned, captain, which is why we are sending the USSC Aurora as support. Further to follow. Hound. Out.”

“Understood and acknowledged, Admiral,” Aaen responded as the line closed. The image and biographical data disappeared.

“What’s your plan, sir?” Smith asked Aaen subtly.

“Weapons’ status?” Aaen asked Sandberg.

Sandburg scanned the data on his screen, nodded subtly and then directly responded, “All weapons are fully armed and standing by,”

“Commander Smith!” Jorgensen called from the back of the bridge, “The upgrade on the cannons is finished! I’m nearly done upgrading the torpedoes and torpedo launchers!”

“Prepare for a multi-vector tactical assault—attack pattern Alpha-One,” Aaen commanded.

“We’re going to shoot first and ask questions later?” Smith asked.

“I’m going to disable that carrier so they can’t transfer the Olyphium. I’m thinking Aurora will take care of those escort ships. Computer: information about USSC Aurora?”

A low series of tones filled the bridge and then the computer responded, “Unable to provide requested information. The requested information is classified.”

 Aaen wondered, why is a ship whose finer details are classified is being sent to provide assistance on this mission?—‘WHY?’ also crossed his mind, but he kept to himself for the moment, noting Smith was looking at him with a confused look at the computer’s response to his order. Why are its details classified?. . . Aaen suspected the entire crew would find out soon enough and dismissed the computer’s response—

“Sandberg, begin tactical scans of that carrier. Try to see if you can find any vulnerabilities we might be able to exploit.” Aaen commanded.

“Yes, sir,” and the work began immediately.

“Any sign we’ve been detected?” Aaen asked.

Three seconds later, Jones replied, “None,”

“I’m having a heck of a time keeping up with that carrier. . . We’re barely staying inside of the carrier’s translight bubble and above the carrier’s hull.”

“Steady as she goes,” Aaen said, trying to be assuring, “You’ve got this, Lieutenant,”

“Thank you, sir,” Wilson wiped the sweat off of his forehead with his left sleeve, continuing to quickly adjust the engine controls to keep Odyssey from bouncing around like a pinball in a pinball machine.

“E-T-A?” Aaen asked Wilson.

Wilson checked the ship’s navigational instrumentation and then replied, “—About five minutes,”

“I see Crestax’s ship on long-range sensors! It’s headed for the same place as the alien carrier,”

“—We’re being hailed!” Hayes declared.

Aaen snapped, “By who?”

“‘USSC Aurora’,”

“I’m not detecting any other ships out there other than those alien ships,” Jones declared. 

The cold chill turned into a surge of anxiety as Aaen sat upright in his chair, “Try to find out where Aurora’s transmitting from. Put them on-speakers,” For some reason, Aaen immediately doubtfully asked himself, do we even have a chance at tracing their hail?

“Aye,”

“This is Major Storm aboard Aurora, to Odyssey. We see you on sensors approaching the aliens’ rendezvous point. We are aware of the tactical situation. Signal us when ready on coded channel Omega. Aurora is ready to engage the escort ships, and a Shadow Team is standing by to board the carrier.”

Wide-eyed at what he had just heard, Aaen replied, “Thank you, Major,” and with that, he somehow found it possible to rest a little easier in his chair, “Standby for signal to engage hostiles. Odyssey. Out.” With a nod to Hayes, she closed the channel. “Standby to send that signal, Lieutenant.”

Hayes replied with a nod and prepared the signal on her computer screen.

“We’re two minutes out, captain!” Wilson declared.

“Steady!” Aaen commanded. The attack pattern he ordered would mean Odyssey would be nearly scraping whatever paint may be on the carrier’s hull as it spiraled over and around the alien carrier’s hull—he couldn’t help but be curious as to what Odyssey’s new and improved weapons could do. . . At the same time, he was concerned that they might be too close for the explosive torpedo warheads? He trusted ship and crew would function in such a way that they—worse-case-scenario—would just get rattled. . . Then again—“Sandberg, be prepared to adjust the shield matrix dynamics in case we need to pass through theirs if we need to,”

“Aye,”

“Commander Smith, alert condition-one,” the order was carried out immediately as the bridge became nearly cave-dark, with bright neon-red ribbon lights highlighting the bridge with an accompanying alert, “All hands: battle stations. Acquire carrier hull and subsystem targets and standby to engage targets on my command. Be ready, Lieutenant Hayes. Tell me when the alien convoy slows to sublight speed,”

Hayes nodded again, this time twice as anxiously as before; Wilson acknowledged his order promptly with Hayes.

“We’re slowing to sublight speed!” Wilson declared. The stars were becoming visible again.

Aaen looked at the viewscreen and shouted, “Execute!”

*****

Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."

DANIEL STORM, a Jordan Foutin eBook, is available for $8.99 at any of these fine online retailers: 

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The Quantum Leap - Part Six

We need answers, and we need them—now, Aaen thought sharply. “Jones, can you get any clear readings about what’s going on inside those stations?”

Jones turned her head in disappointment, slapping her knees in frustration, “No, sir.”

“Interference?” Smith asked directly.

“That station is barely registering as though it even exists, it’s blurring and fading in and out without any kind of measurable chronological pattern,”

“Okay, stay calm, everyone. Let’s work the problem.” Aaen wasn’t about to lose his crew members—his next orders were clear to him, “Wilson—take us in closer to that station,” Aaen sharply pointed at the screen. “Take us in beneath it—nice-and-easy. Jones! Maintain active high-intensity sensor sweeps of the solar system!”

“I’m watchin’ anything that moves!”

“Excellent,”

“We’re goin’ in,” Wilson declared. The station gradually centered in the viewscreen—the deck began to tremor—

“WHAT-THE-HECK?” Smith shouted, bracing against his computer terminal in shock, looking around wide-eyed.

“INCOMING SHIP from SIX-O’-CLOCK! JEEEZ! ” Jones shouted over the building tremors in the deck.

Seconds later, a massive black bulky elongated shape passed into view in the center of the viewscreen.

“SILENT RUNNING?” Aaen asked directly.

Sandberg knew the question was directed at him and replied, “ACTIVE! WE’RE INVISIBLE!”

The tremors calmed as the passing ship’s blinding yellow engine panels came into view.

“New Horizon has an ugly cousin,” Jones observed, scanning the data filling her screen as fast as comprehension allowed for. “It’s size and dimensions are comparable to New Horizon.”

“Sir, that thing’s headed for the same station as us. Should I change course?”

Aaen turned his head, “Negative. Maintain your course, Wilson,”

With a gasp, Wilson replied, “Yes, sir,” he looked at the viewscreen wide-eyed, cautiously angling the hull down for ten seconds, and then up and level to their destination. . .he shut down the sublight engines and then switched to the antigravity thrusters—easy. . .easy. . . Full stop. Thrusters in standby mode. “Okay. Thrusters are in standby. No forward motion,”

Aaen sat back in his seat and put his arms on his lavishly-padded armrests.

“That other ship in the area is nearly directly over our heads on the other side of the station, on an adjacent course to ours.” Jones declared. “They’re holding position there. Their defensive matrix is active—no sign that ship or the station have detected us.”

That’s my Odyssey! Aaen grinned. ”Okay! Jones, where is the least-populated area on that station near anything that looks like a computer access point, or anything else potentially important?” Aaen noted a tactical heads-up-display (HUD) appeared in the viewscreen, fine thin lines and diagrams accompanied the report to come.

“There are forty decks on that station. Deck thirty, sections twelve through sixteen look like they’re the most unoccupied—for now. There are twenty of those aliens coming down to that area as-we-speak.”

“Okay. Commander Smith, form an away team and go aboard that station. Get a first-hand look of what’s going on in that station. I wanna know what they’re doing in this solar system. Bring high-yield explosive charges, too.”

“Sir!” Smith quickly acknowledged, and then pointed to different locations on the bridge, “Lieutenant Jorgensen, Lieutenant Commander Sandberg—you’re both with me!”

Both officers got up sharply and followed Smith to the weapon and equipment storage locker on the aft port side of the deck behind Connors; Aaen followed as well. Aaen and Smith unlocked the locker with a thumbprint scan and respective command-level authorization codes. the thumb panels turned green and disengaged a series of four metal locks—the twin tan metal doors opened easily at this point.

They gathered three standard-issue particle weapons that appeared futuristically sleek and pistol-like. Smith wore a visor-like headset that wrapped around the front of his face like ancient eye-glasses. The right side of the headset featured a crisp bright-blue infrared imaging system that matched his Smith gave two of the particle weapons to the other two away team members as Aaen turned to Connors, “Prepare to send the away team to the station,”

“Aye, sir. Phasing pad standing by,” she replied with subtle enthusiasm.

“The video feed signal strength is strong. We’ll be able to see what they see over there,” Jones interjected.

Aaen saw the away team to the phase pad. Jones turned around in her chair. “Five minutes, and then that area of the station will be crawling with those aliens and we’re screwed!”

“Very well,” Aaen acknowledged. “Away team, fire only if and when you are fired upon. Get in. Learn what you can, then get out of there! We’ll keep an active lock on you if things go south,”

The away team nodded acknowledgment.

“The station’s defensive systems just powered-down. I don’t think they’re expecting company,” Jones declared.

“Connors! Execute!”

In seconds, the pad went dark and the away team disappeared into seeming nothingness.

“THEY’RE IN!” Connors confirmed without missing a beat.

Aaen rushed back to his chair, leaned back and faced the viewscreen. The video feed filled the viewscreen nearly flawlessly. Atmospheric data from the station fed to Jones’s station.

Aaen noted the feed coloration appeared a dark fiery yellow and orange, then realized that was the actual atmosphere. “Smith? Report!”

“It’s hot as heck over here, captain. It’s gotta be a hundred fifty degrees or more. The station appears to be some kind of mining facility.” the feed filled with expressions of disgust for the atmosphere. “There’s some kind of industrial purification process going on here. Lots of pools of some kind of liquid mercury-like substance bubbling and undergoing what looks like some kind of chemical treatment—an odd dark-colored fluid. Don’t know what to make of it. I’d say the aliens are trying to mine and then refine a significant supply of Olyphium. No idea what for. Goodness, there’s a lotta really heavy industrial activity in here,”

“—Movement ahead! Take cover!” Jorgensen declared, snapping to draw his firearm. The away team hid in deep dark doorway-like crevices lining the corridor. Smith slowly peeked around the corner.

“Smith! Zoom-in on the way ahead for about two-hundred-meters!” Aaen commanded.

“I see. .two! No! Counting Sixteen life forms—they’re organic, anywhere from about six, or seven or eight feet tall, easily. . .and generally human-like appearance! It’s so hot our eyes are burning,” Smith noted the rest of the away team were breathing harder and blinking twice as often to try to keep their eyes from drying out.

“I’m getting tons of bio readings from the aliens!” Jones declared, relaying the data to the medical database. “Negative on POI database inquiries,” POI was short for ‘Person-of-interest’.

“They’re wearing some kind of protective metallic apparel—oh, shoot, they’re getting closer! Twenty meters out and closing fast! Odyssey, emergency phase out! NOW!” Smith said loudly under his breath. “Away team, standby to engage!”

“Negative! Connors, get them outta there!” Aaen commanded.

“They’re on their way back! Phasing!”

Seconds later, all three away team members entered the bridge, rushing to the medical bay, tossing their gear on the medical bunks and gasping for air. Smith and Jorgensen had a few black smudge marks on their faces and hands. The doctor snapped into action with light-up medical devices and water. Smith and Jorgensen were back at their posts in less than a minute.

“We just intercepted a coded message from someone outside of the solar system. . .the sender’s name is censored out. . .but they’re asking for ‘the supply of Olyphium to be delivered to a set of coordinates.”

“Where are they?” Aaen asked Hayes.

Hayes slapped her station, “—Dang it! It’s encrypted.” she turned her head, “We don’t know enough about their language to decipher the coordinates.”

“Captain! A hundred shuttles are launching from the station to that huge ship that passed over us earlier!” Jones declared. “They’re docking!”

“On-screen!”

Video of small arrow-head-shaped shuttles with one visible glowing propulsion system centered on the aft hull flew into an array of docking ports along the ventral-starboard side of the long dark mass. The ports glowed a bright red from the inside—the shuttles landed very delicately.

“They’ve gotta be carrying the supply of Olythium.” Smith hinted to Aaen.

“I’m wondering what they’re planning to do with it?” Aaen asked directly and generally.

“The larger ship is getting ready to leave! They’re setting course out of the solar system!” Jones declared.

“Wilson, pursuit course!” Aaen commanded.

“Aye!”

Odyssey flew over and around the station briskly effortlessly—Wilson put Odyssey along the dorsal hull, mostly aft, facing what he guessed was the ship’s forward section.

“Match their speed and course.” The order was immediately acknowledged. “Send another update to New Horizon. Same encoding pattern, but rotate the frequency. We don’t want the aliens to know which key’s edge opens the lock. Connors! Do you think you can break into their computer mainframe and download their database? Give us an idea of who they are.”

“I’m on it!” Connors replied enthusiastically. She began her work immediately.

Hayes face suddenly came within an inch of his screen, “The alien station’s signaling to the other side of the solar system!”

“What?” Aaen snapped.

“We still haven’t been detected!” Jones declared. I think.

A sensor alert flooded through the bridge like a wave; Jones snapped, “WOAH! People—there’s twenty alien contacts headed straight this way!”

Aaen sat upright in his chair and said, “Commander Smith—alert-condition-two,”

*****

Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."

DANIEL STORM, a Jordan Foutin eBook, is available for $8.99 at any of these fine online retailers: 

smashwords.com (Remember to like and share!)

apple iBooks (This link is best viewed on iPhone or iPad)

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The Quantum Leap - Part Five

Jones snapped, “Those energy readings are back!”

Aaen pointed behind him, “Keep monitoring them! Wilson, maintain your course! All ahead—FULL!”

The image on the view screen was starting to shake. “Solar winds! You’re gonna have a heck of a time, Wilson!”

Aaen took his seat as the rest of the crew braced against their stations.

 “—We’re three minutes out! Detecting some more energy readings at long-range. They match the readings we got from those drone ships that attacked us and New Horizon.” Jones declared.

“Hold your course, Commander!” Aaen commanded.

“Aye!”

“A bunch of rock debris ahead! They’re all over the freakin’ place!” Jones declared.

“I see them!”

Aaen eyed one rock in particular on the view screen that was closing fast from the port bow. The rock blocked the stars and the light from the center of the solar system ahead and was moving so fast there seemed to be a mist brushing violently off of its jagged edges.

“EVASIVE!” Aaen commanded.

Smith snapped and barked, “Standby weapons!”

Against a rock that size? Aaen thought skeptically.

Wilson executed an abrupt barrel roll climbing Odyssey over the top of the asteroid, bringing Odyssey back down rapidly and then leveled-out, rolling to offset inertia. The asteroids ahead were smaller and clunky but were putting off a larger and thicker dusty mist, and seemingly blurred across the screen as they sped through space.

“I’ve got weapons locked on the asteroids ahead!” Sandberg declared.

“WEAPONS RELEASE ON MY COMMAND, ONLY!” Aaen interjected.

“Standing by!”

Wilson executed numerous wild, sharp and abrupt evasive maneuvers—daredevil-like—narrowly missing hundreds of rocks that Aaen and Smith both knew could easily pulverize the hull on impact. . . And then there was a clearing as the solar system’s sun became visible in the view screen as the brightest dot among the black sea of twinkling stars, through a thinning haze of dust.

“We’re clear!” Jones declared with a cheer. The bridge cheered; Aaen relaxed, grinning slightly, as his curiosity piqued. The crew calmed and returned to their stations and began reading and analyzing the new floods of data filling the bridge computer stations.

“Alright! Hold position, here. All hands: we are in suspected enemy territory. Let’s look alive. Smith: alert condition three. Jones, let’s initiate high-resolution long-and-short-range sensor sweeps of the solar system—3D, multi-spectrum, thermal, ultra-violet, the whole-nine-yards. Hayes, send a mission update to New Horizon including current vessel status.”

“Beginning sensor sweeps of the solar system,”

“Commander Smith!” a male voice called from the back of the bridge. It was Lieutenant Commander Jorgensen. Smith turned around the corner. Jorgensen relayed several technical instructions, which Smith immediately carried out—adjusting instrumentation settings on his station. Aaen reasoned the upgrades he had ordered were well-underway. He grinned at this, eying the view screen. For the first time in several hours, his gut feeling was more good than not. He stayed focused.

A sensor alert sounded. Attention on the bridge fell on Jones. She squinted at her screen, and then quickly sat upright in her chair with a shocked look on her face. “There are ten planets in this solar system, fifteen orbiting moons throughout. . . and thousands of energy signatures all-over-the-place—they’re ships!. . . Looks like a combination of scout ships, cruisers, destroyers, and some that are comparable in size to New Horizon—and a few that are even bigger.” she said sharply, “Sensors are detecting all of the ships are fully-powered, weapons, shielding systems. . . Holy-cow!—Three high-volume space stations orbiting the third, fifth, and eighth planets in the solar system. Life signs are in excess of eight-hundred-thousand on the space stations,” She gasped, “. . .And a terawatt-level scanning array sweeping through the solar system!”

Oh, crap! Aaen snapped, “Is it enough to penetrate the stealth field?” Aaen asked directly.

Jones turned her head, “I don’t think so,”

“Where is the scanning beam coming from?” Smith asked without missing a beat.

“It’s being supported from multiple locations throughout the solar system,” she gasped in frustration, “they’re hidden. It’ll take a little while to triangulate them.”

“Get on it,” Aaen commanded. “Maintain silent running. I don’t want to risk being detected. Jones, keep doing scans of the solar system. I want to know why there are so many of those alien ships here,”

“Yes, sir,”

“Captain!” Hayes called.

Aaen snapped, “New orders?”

Hayes turned her head. “Long-range transmissions aren’t getting through.”

“Why?” Smith asked. “Interference?”

“There’s some kind of jamming signal in effect around the edge of the solar system. Our coded messages are coming straight back seconds after we send them.”

“For now, work on finding a way to get through the jamming signal,” Aaen commanded. Work to carry out the order began immediately.

“Scan results so far indicate a very high level of an element called ‘Olyphium’.”

Olyphium? Aaen wondered. What could they possibly be using that for?

“Looks like the bases are either being used for mining, refining, manufacturing, or staging ships.”

“This might be some kind of forward operating base,” Smith suggested to Aaen. “If that’s true, we might be looking at preparation efforts for a large-scale attack,”

“Why would they attack The Union?” Aaen asked.

“An existing quarrel, maybe? Or perhaps they’re just hostile? If The Union is on defense. . . and they’re as powerful as they’ve demonstrated so far from what we’ve seen,”

Aaen understood where Smith was going with this, and he decided what to do next. “We’re gonna take a closer look at what’s going on here,” he said to Smith, then sat upright and faced forward, “Wilson, take us to the nearest orbiting alien space station. Take us into a lower orbit. Steady as she goes,”

“Jones, keep an eye on those other ships. If they change course, I want to know it.”

“Understood!”

There was one thought lingering in the back of Aaen’s mind: something wasn’t right. . .

*****

Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."

DANIEL STORM, a Jordan Foutin eBook, is available for $8.99 at any of these fine online retailers: 

smashwords.com (Remember to like and share!)

apple iBooks (This link is best viewed on iPhone or iPad)

barnesandnoble.com 

scribd.com 

kobo.com

blio.com

Make sure to buy your copy today, and like and share!

Make sure to like the official StormTeam Simulations Facebook page for the latest, including when DANIEL STORM will be available on Amazon.com for Kindle eBook and softcover! Coming soon!