What follows is a work of
complete fiction.
This series will include detailed
descriptions of sexual encounters between a human male and other males from various alien races in a science fiction setting.
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About the story:
This
series tells the story of an ordinary man who's life is near its
natural end, but who suddenly finds himself, at the moment of the
unexpected destruction of his world, the victim of an alien
abduction with a bizarre motive, that ultimately opens the entire
universe to him and propels him into a life of adventure that he'd
never
imagined was even possible. He eventually finds himself thrust
front and center into events that could, both figuratively and quite
literally, change the shape of the entire known universe.
I hope that you enjoy it.
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Favors of the First Ones - Chapter 19
Jake
moaned at the pleasure of having his hole stretched by the thick penis
of his lover. He was on his back and his legs were hooked up on
Srythryn's shoulders as the muscular croc pounded away at Jake's rectum.
Jake was nearly bent in half and Srythryn had leaned in to plunge his tongue
into his mouth. They sucked at each other's tongues with a
frenzied passion while Srythryn approached yet another intense orgasm.
They'd
been making love for hours. Jake had missed his lover so badly he
could not get enough of Srythryn and the croc was thrilled to help him
try to slake his needs completely.
Srythryn pulled back from the kiss and shouted as his orgasm crashed into him hard yet again.
He
grunted and tensed and thrust himself as deeply into Jake as he could
and shot a long spurt of his thick seed deep into his lover.
The
sensation of the powerful croc's thick tool hammering past the rings of
muscles along Jake's rectum were more than the man could take any
longer and he grabbed his own penis and began to jack it hard as his
orgasm hit and he gasped as he shot a long stream of cum onto his chest.
His
anus clenched with each pulse of his orgasm and the
sensation of Srythryn's cock rubbing against it drove Jake to even
higher levels of pleasure as he continued to spurt ropes of his cum out
onto his own belly and chest.
Srythryn bucked and moaned and
gasped as his body was wracked with multiple powerful spasms until it
finally could produce no more semen and his orgasm began to settle down.
He
slowed his humping to a stop and then moved his face back in to neck
with Jake once more. This time they kissed slowly and lovingly as
the last of their orgasms faded away.
After a time Srythryn
carefully pulled out of Jake and then moved to lay down beside him with
one arm over Jake's messy chest and one leg hooked over Jake's legs.
They
lay against each other quietly as they enjoyed the last warm glow of
their powerful orgasms.
As he lay there, Jake thought about the busy day they'd had, and the work that they still had
ahead of them.
Prior to this lovemaking session, they
had been in the briefing room for hours
while Srythryn was showed all of the evidence the zeths had been
compiling against the First Ones, including their destruction of the
Earth. As Jake had assumed he would do, the big croc had become
enraged at having been duped for his entire life by a race that saw
other beings as so far beneath them that they snuffed entire sentient
races without a thought. He'd launched
into a chain of expletives that even the translator had trouble with as
he swore and cursed and raged for quite a long while while the others sat
quietly and allowed him to vent.
Jake would not want to be
Xelzix. The little alien's name kept appearing mixed in with the
strings of obscenities the big croc had been spewing. He was quite certain if the little grey
man was here in the room now, Srythryn would be peeling him like a
banana and rolling him in salt. The future was not
bright for the lackeys hidden away in their section of the
Slirkstrith.
Everyone understood exactly what the big croc was feeling and most had the same reaction themselves when they had
first been informed of the truth.
Even while the meeting was underway, they had
coasted across the edge of the heliosphere and the navigator had executed an extremely
short jump that jogged them a few hundred thousand miles to the side.
They maintained their speed and began to travel in a circle around the
point they'd exited so that they could wait and see what the
Slirkstrith would do next when she came through. It would take her a couple more days to
cross into interstellar space.
After Srythryn had settled down
somewhat from his reaction to their shocking revelation, they'd taken more time to explain as much as they could about
the resistance and their failed attempts at using the satellites to
protect worlds. The discussion eventually led to the reason
Srythryn had been brought aboard and what they wanted him to do.
He agreed almost immediately that he would help in any way he
could.
It had been a long session and Jake had suggested they
adjourn for a few hours to give Srythryn time to process everything
before they began to plan strategy for their encounter with the
Slirkstrith.
Everyone had agreed and they all went their separate
ways.
Srythryn went with Jake to his quarters and, to the croc's
delight, Jake had nearly ravaged him. He'd missed his sweet
crocodile more than he'd even realized. They'd made love with
more passion than they'd ever done before. In between their intense orgasms they held
each other and spoke tender words of love and allowed all of the
emotion they felt for each other to flow out.
At last they were
spent.
They were expected back in the briefing room in just half
an hour to discuss the strategy of how they would reconnect with the Slirkstrith in five
weeks when it hopefully would rush to the siskreth system, and how that
encounter should play out.
They
had enough time to relax together for just a bit longer before they
needed to head back to begin the meeting again so they began to chat.
"It
is so odd to be making love to you this way and have it be the first
time for you since you last left my ship more than three months ago,
while to me it seems we did it just five days ago. The session we
had then was even longer than this one. I hadn't been with you
for six months but you had been with me just a couple of days prior from your point of view.
Time definitely plays tricks with the mind when resurrection is involved.
It gets even more complicated when there are more than one of
each of us. It is so hard to take it all in," Srythryn said as he
ran his fingers around in the messy cum all over Jake's chest and belly.
Jake
chuckled and said, "Yeah, I've had quite a bit of time to deal with the
idea of my double, but even I wasn't expecting to have two of you until just a few
days ago when the idea hit me. The idea that there will be another one of you in five weeks is still new to me too."
"It
was an amazingly well conceived plan, my love. You were truly
thinking outside the box. I am impressed with you."
"You don't feel any anger about having a double who is going to lay claim to the life you built?" Jake asked.
"No.
It does not bother me in the least. I have lived long
enough that I have rebuilt my life countless times. I quite enjoy
reinventing myself and I would have done it again in time. When
you have an eternity stretched out before you, you soon realize you will
need to change everything once in a while to keep things interesting."
Jake
chuckled and said, "Well, neither one of us will have that problem any
longer. We have no favors communicating with the First Ones'
computers and we'll never have the ability to resurrect again. There is no eternity for us.
You will have to get used to the idea of mortality. The
whole universe will, in fact. I'm not sure that we'll be seen as
heroes if we manage to succeed at what we're going to attempt.
There may be a lot of people upset with us for taking away their
immortality, even if it means they gain true freedom."
"Indeed,
there will be some who will hold it against us and we may end up being hunted for the rest of our lives, but most will
understand. The future is uncertain for everyone even if we succeed in any
event."
"How so?" Jake asked.
"We
will be cutting off the
favors and as such removing them as a weapon, thus disarming the
Lawkeepers and destroying the infrastructure required for the insurance
of return, but we will not be destroying the First Ones themselves.
The zeth said in the meeting that from their past experience
the First Ones were too well hidden within their own network and the
zeth programs could not route them out. No one has any knowledge
of the physical location of the First Ones' computers within the
universe. They could be anywhere. Even a concerted search
by all members of the collective would likely turn up nothing with
billions of years for the search. As such we cannot stop them
from attempting to rise up and strike back at us. It will simply
be a matter of time before they do. Perhaps they have
contingencies in place that we cannot know about. Perhaps they
have kept some of their dangerous technologies from the past under
wraps in the event that they may need to bring them out and rearrange
the universe someday. We have no way of knowing what they might
be able to do to us."
"I hadn't really thought
that far forward, but you're right. We can't stop them unless we
can find them while they're still weak and have no link to the favors and
no one on their side. We have to destroy their computers somehow
before they get a chance to mount a comeback," Jake said.
"There
will be a great deal of time to think about that. The First Ones
operate on a scale of time that will no longer be available to us once
the resurrection process becomes impossible. You and I will
have likely faded from memory long before the First Ones reappear,
unless somehow a new method of achieving immortality is developed.
We must focus on the here and now and ensure that we get our
parts done to enable a future for the collective that will be free of
the threat of destruction by the First Ones. Having seen what
this ship is capable of and the technologies the rhuxus and the zeths
have been able to develop without the First Ones' interference, I
believe we will quite quickly be drawn into a technological revolution
that might shake the foundations of the known universe. There may
be dangerous times ahead."
"Yeah,"
Jake agreed, "I struggled
with that idea for a time when I thought about what the zeths and the
resistance were trying to achieve. All of those protections you
told me about when you first scooped me up off the Earth were effective, even
if they were not done for benevolent reasons. The First Ones
wanted all technological advancement stopped because they wanted to
ensure no one would ever develop any technology that could defeat them
and remove their role as de facto rulers of the universe. The end
effect was still to protect all of the races from accidentally killing
themselves, and everyone else, with technology that they couldn't
control.
Now, with the First Ones not watching and controlling everything,
there will likely be a surge of advancement on all technologies on
every front and someone at some point might unleash something that
undoes everything."
Srythryn
said, "It is unavoidable that the races will all try to advance
themselves as quickly as possible, but we
have another benefit that the First Ones provided to us, again, even if
not for the right reasons. They are responsible for the creation
of the collective. Hundreds of thousands of races have been
living in peace and harmony for so long that it has become ingrained in
our way of life. We will be starting from a position of peace and
cooperation among all peoples. As long as we are able to maintain
the collective going forward, we should be able to police the
development
of technology ourselves and try to keep somewhat of a rein on things.
We need only create our own set of laws to govern what can and
can't be done among member races of the collective along with review
processes for more dangerous areas of research. We will need to
be decisive when it comes to enacting punishment for any that attempt
to work outside the collective's guidelines."
"There
will be some races that won't like being told what they can and can't
do by the others. The races that have been doing the First Ones'
dirty work come to mind," Jake said.
"It would be
unwise at this point for any race to break away, though some may do it.
With luck, we should be able to maintain the peace and harmony
that has existed for so long. It is because of the First Ones
that we did not ever have to go through a period of war and competition
on a universal scale. We have much to thank them for, even though
they have much to answer for as well."
"Yeah, they destroyed
my world and Rhokki's and Ausku's in just the last half year, and countless others in the past.
If someone handed me an axe and pointed at the power cable I
needed to cut to end the First Ones' existence forever, I wouldn't
hesitate to chop it, even if I knew it would electrocute me and kill
me."
Srythryn kissed Jake on the cheek and said, "Let us hope it
never comes to that. I want you with me for as much time as we
both have remaining. I love you more than my own life, my sweet man. No matter
what the future may hold, I am ready to face it so long as I may do it
with you at my side."
Jake
smiled and turned his head to kiss his wonderful croc on the lips and
said, "I love you too. I'm so glad I get to have you back in my
life. Now I don't have to feel jealous of the other Jake, but
happy for him."
Srythryn chuckled and said, "It is the other Srythryn who is lucky to have the other you."
The big croc nuzzled Jake's cheek lovingly and then he sighed and said, "I
suppose it is time for us to prepare for the next meeting. I
don't think the others would appreciate us entering the room covered in
each other's seed as we are. We have made somewhat of a mess of
ourselves. Let us clean up and then make our way back to the
briefing room."
They both reluctantly got up
and headed into the bathroom to shower and get ready for the next
strategy session. They put on fresh clothes and headed back
to the briefing room and found the others already assembled.
"Welcome back, you two," Sintas said, "I trust you had sufficient time to reconnect?"
"Not
quite as often as I would have liked, but we will be able to reconnect
a few more times later tonight I'm sure," Srythryn said.
Jake
grinned and Rhokki smiled at him. Rhokki and Mak had both decided
to give Jake and Srythryn their space for a day or two to get their long
absence from each other out of their systems before they all tried to
find a new way to live together as one big family. It was obvious
from their first meeting that they would all get along fantastically
well. It was just a matter of giving it enough time and not
rushing anything.
"Let us begin," Sintas said, "Our main order
of business is to determine how we will arrange to be in the siskreth
system at the same time as the Slirkstrith is, so that we may cut off
the favors of the ark ship and the planet at once in order to protect
them from possible retaliatory action by the Lawkeepers when they
detect our attack on their systems. Srythryn, what is your
feeling about the message you received from Komakwa just before you
'died'. Do you feel your other self will react to it as we had
hoped?"
"Indeed, there is no doubt in my mind. It was well
crafted. I was convinced that Jake's match had gone mad and was somehow in control of this ship, and the
First Ones themselves had already convinced me this ship had the power
to destroy worlds. The other version of me will be rushing to the
bridge the moment he awakes with the intent to bring the Slirkstrith
back home as quickly as possible. There is no doubt that in five
weeks she will be headed to my home system."
"Good. At
least we know that she will be heading there in five week's time.
We simply don't know where she'll be when their trip begins and
so we won't know how long we'll have to wait for her to arrive at the
siskreth system."
"When
she arrives will depend somewhat on what she does
next. She may wait in interstellar space for me to be
resurrected, in which case one short jump will take them to the
siskreth system as soon as the other me awakes. My home system is
not far and it would be only one jump for us as well so we could follow
her immediately, though we would not know precisely where she would
come in. I suggest our best course of action for the time being
is
to wait and watch to see what she does.
If my executive officer follows through with my wishes, then she
will ultimately jump away to the miquanowan system. If we see her
jump, we cannot be absolutely sure that is where she went, and it would
be pointless for us to follow her to the miquanowan system anyway.
She can get there in one jump but it would take this ship five
jumps."
"Agreed," Sintas said, "Is there
any reason to assume she might go somewhere other than where you had intended to take her next?"
"As I'm sure you are aware,
Captain, any ark ship acting as a resurrection site is ultimately at
the mercy of the First Ones during any emergency situation that
involves them. It is possible that the Lawkeepers may direct her
on another course, though it seems unlikely. All I am saying is
that the First Ones will have the ultimate say in where the Slirkstrith
goes next. We
can be fairly sure she will end up in the siskreth system though, so it
may just be best for us to make our way there directly and wait.
How long it takes her to get there will depend on how deep they
are into the miquanowan system when my other self wakes and turns her
around to head back out. It could be at least another five weeks,
though she will likely increase to combat acceleration, in which case
it would be just a week or so before she would be back in interstellar space
and able to jump."
Sintas
nodded, "So our best action is to jump to the siskreth home world,
and stay hidden at the fringes and wait for her to come to us in five
weeks or more."
Everyone agreed that there wasn't much else they could do but head straight to the siskreth system and wait.
"We
will have at least five weeks to prepare for our encounter with the
Slirkstrith, are we ready to begin the discussion of how we will proceed with it?" Sintas asked.
"Yes, I think it best that we work
out as many details as possible now, so that we have as much time as possible
to get things ready," Srythryn said.
"Our primary concern will
be survival," Sintas said, "The Slirkstrith is a formidable ship and
the Shadow's Claw would not stand a chance going toe to toe with her.
Are there any weaknesses we might exploit to improve our
survivability?"
"It will not be easy," Srythryn said, "Our biggest
concern would be to not let her bring her main cannon to bear on this
ship. If she does, we are finished. There are two ways to
prevent her from doing so. The simplest is to stay out of range
of the weapon. That would not help us as we must get into range
in order to engage her. The other way is to get so close to her
that she cannot get a bead on us. The cannon is at the front,
attached to the massive sphere that contains the antimatter buffer.
It can target anything within a fairly wide arc in front of the
ship, but if the target falls outside of that arc then the ship must be
turned to face it. The Shadow's Claw is vastly more maneuverable due to
her small size and the power of her thrusters. Your artificial gravity
systems remove the concern of protecting the people within from violent
forces of acceleration. Do you think it would be possible to
bring the Shadow's Claw directly alongside the Slirkstrith, and keep
her there no matter what maneuvers she attempts while trying to bring
her cannon around?"
"Absolutely,"
Sintas replied, "The Claw is
invisible to any scanners and as such your defensive systems will not
be able to target her successfully. When right alongside, she
will be invisible. We can use retros to move her around the
cylinder, back or forward, closer or farther, whatever it takes to stay
on the move and difficult to track. We would be able to stick to
the Slirkstrith in such a way that she could never bring her cannon to
bear on us. The problem at that close range would be the
fighters.
We would be in the thick of them and there would be close to a
thousand by the time they are all launched. We have only so many
tubes and could not fire enough disrupter charges to keep that many of
them at bay indefinitely if they are spread out and coming at us from
all angles. We have no other form of fighter suppression other
than our own fighters, of which there are not enough to make any
difference."
"Agreed, the fighters will be our biggest concern.
I cannot see a way to take them out of the equation. We
built the Slirkstrith to withstand a very large force. One small
ship cannot stand much of a chance against her," Srythryn said.
"I
can think of at least one way to take not only the fighters out of the
equation, but also the main cannon, and all of her defensive turrets
and missile ports," Jake said.
Sintas smiled and said, "Why am I not surprised? How can we do it?"
"We
can't, but Srythryn can," Jake said and he turned to the croc and asked,
"You have the power to shut those systems down as captain, don't you?"
Srythryn's
eyes widened and he said, "I do indeed. If we could somehow get
me aboard at the beginning of the encounter, I could shut down launch
control and weapons control and I could even lock the other Srythryn
out of the system so that he couldn't possibly gain control back
without physically replacing the security core. That process
takes hours."
"Would you be willing to shut down her shields as well?" asked Sintas.
Srythryn
immediately looked uncomfortable, but before he could speak Jake said,
"I don't think that would be wise, or even necessary. The only
reason to drop her shields would be to allow us to squirt Srythryn
aboard her, but in order to lower her shields, he would have to already be there. We have to figure out how
to get Srythryn aboard even while the Slirkstrith's shields are still
up. It would be asking too much to have Srythryn render his ark
ship and its entire population completely defenseless against any
threat. They would even be vulnerable to micro meteors and solar
radiation unnecessarily. The shields should stay up."
Srythryn seemed to
relax and Sintas said, "Yes. I suppose you're right. The
only other reason we might want her shields down would be to hit her
with the zeth signal to disconnect the favors, but Voph assures me a
portable unit will work quite effectively once it's inside the shields.
As you say, achieving any of this means getting Srythryn aboard
while the shields are still up. I should not have made the
suggestion. We should keep her shields in place."
Srythryn
smiled and said, "I am glad you see it that way. I am not willing
to risk the lives of all of those aboard by lowering the shields for any amount of time.
So, the question is, how do we get me aboard?"
"You came out yourself to destroy this ship before, is there a chance you would do the same again?" Sintas asked.
Srythryn
shook his head and said, "It is highly unlikely. They are now
fully aware of your disrupter weapon and they will not make the same
mistake twice. The other Srythryn would send out all of the
squadrons he has to ensure success. The light fighters would
harry this ship and draw the
disrupter fire to attempt to drain your buffer, while a steady stream
of
squadrons of heavy strike craft would throw a constant barrage of
torpedoes
at her from all sides. They will know not to bunch up in order to
avoid them all being caught in the disrupter blasts. They will
work in extremely loose formations and fire torpedoes in staggered
sequences so that a single blast of the disrupter might take out only
two or three while other torpedoes fly through in between blasts.
They would
eventually get several torpedoes through our defenses. This ship
could not hold out in such a situation. I would assume it was
designed to strike
fast from a position of stealth, and then run fast and disappear once
more."
Sintas nodded and said, "Precisely so.
The Shadow's Claw was not designed to engage in such protracted
combat,
especially not with a ship the size and power of the Slirkstrith.
Our buffer drains quite slowly even if we fire the disrupters
repeatedly so we can keep the suppression going for quite some time,
but we would eventually run out of energy and then we would be a
sitting duck. We could take out the entire compliment of the
Slirkstrith's fighters if we wished, by positioning ourselves right at
the aft end and pummeling all of the fighters with disrupters blasts as
they emerge and before they can spread out to engage us, but that would
leave the Slirkstrith defenseless after the engagement and she may need
her fighters to deal with whatever happens next if our attempt to
destroy the QECH hub fails. We cannot risk letting all of the
fighters spread out and attack us from all sides, nor can we risk
leaving the ark ship defenseless by destroying them all as they emerge."
Srythryn said, "In any case, to answer your
question, we must assume the other me will remain aboard the
Slirkstrith to coordinate the battle from there. You will not be
able to use the same trick you used to get me aboard here. He
will not be sitting in a fighter."
"We
don't really need the other Srythryn. He would be on the bridge
and wouldn't get in our way. It doesn't matter who is in
the fighter. We only need the ship, not the pilot. The main
concern would be to limit the number of fighters we destroy, so our
best bet is to limit the number that she sends out after us. How
many
ships can the Slirkstrith launch at once and how fast could she launch
them all?" Jake asked.
"If
she had been at battle stations for any amount of time, the pilots would
all be hanging in the gantries and ready to go at a moment's notice.
She could conceivably have her entire compliment of close to one
thousand fighters launched within minutes," Srythryn said.
"Ugh.
If we could somehow get her to launch just a few squadrons, we
could probably still use the same trick we did before. A well
placed disrupter blast would wipe out all of their shields. We
could then yank someone out of one of the ships, and then squirt you into
it and you could simply fly it back to the Slirkstrith and dock.
As far as they would be concerned you would be one of their own
pilots coming back for repairs after being hit by the disrupter."
"Yes, if we could somehow get it done quickly enough, you could prevent the launch of any more fighters," Sintas said.
"I
don't see how we could limit the number of ships she launches,"
Srythryn said, then he paused in thought and said, "Wait, something
just occurred to me. The other Srythryn will be attempting to
reach his home world as quickly as possible. With our entire race
at risk he will pull out all the stops. He will not be concerned
with the destruction of all of the life in the jungle and ocean.
He will evacuate everyone to the emergency acceleration seats.
That would include all of the pilots. If we could somehow
engage the Slirkstrith while all of the crew are still in the seats,
they would be extremely limited in the rate at which they could launch
fighters. All of the crew would be funneling out of the emergency
section at once and there are only so many elevators to service them
all. They would trickle to their fighters and as such could only
be trickled out into space a few squadrons at a time. It would go
from taking just minutes to launch the thousand ships, to taking hours."
Sintas
smiled and said, "That would be the ticket then. If that is the
case, it should be a simple matter for us to come in close and engage
the first few squadrons they are able to send out, and get you onto one
of those ships and heading back to the Slirkstrith to shut down launch
control to prevent them launching any more."
"The
timing would
be most problematic," Srythryn said, "I'm not entirely sure we could
take
advantage of it. As we discussed earlier, we would not know
precisely when the Slirkstrith will appear in the siskreth system.
Even if we did know precisely when, we wouldn't know exactly
where. The heliosphere is just that, a sphere. They could
come at it from any one of millions of different directions. We
cannot guess the navigator's mind.
We wouldn't know where the Slirkstrith would appear, or which
side of the
system she would come in from, and we wouldn't know what speed she will
be traveling when she executes her hot jump, but it would likely be
quite high. It would simply be impossible for
us to wait for her, then be in position to come up alongside her while
she is still at speed and the crew are still in the emergency section.
Even if this ship had ten times the acceleration capability it
already has, I don't see how we could do it. They will have
had the luxury of weeks of accelerating to build up their
speed, we would be waiting for them and suddenly have to match that
speed within hours. It's not remotely possible."
Everyone
thought about it for a while, but no one could think of a way around
it. If the Shadow's Claw was hidden and waiting at the outer edge
of the heliosphere of the siskreth system, she might be the full
diameter of the heliosphere away from the Slirkstrith when she popped
in. They couldn't possibly catch up to her in time if that was
the case. Even if they happened to be close to the point where
the Slirkstrith entered, they would not have a clue what speed she
would be moving at and they would likely not have the time to match it
and then catch up to her.
If they stayed closer in to the
siskreth home world to wait for her and try to meet her half way, they
still might not be able to match her speed precisely, and they would
also be taking a much greater risk of being discovered in advance.
"We would somehow have to know precisely where the Slirkstrith will be, how
fast she will be going, and what she will be doing next even before she does
it. It seems impossible. The only solution to something
like that would be to have someone on the bridge. We couldn't
possibly arrange that without facing precisely the same
problem we already face in trying to get our Srythryn on board," Sintas
said.
Jake thought about what she'd said about knowing where the ark ship will be, and he suddenly
realized there might be a simple solution. It may not be possible
to know what the Slirkstrith would be doing next, but it might not be
necessary. They knew where the ark ship was right now, and how
fast it was going. All they had to do was stay with her and match
their speed to hers and follow her wherever she goes. If they
never lost sight of her and kept on accelerating just as much as she was, they would never have to guess where she was
or what she might do next, and they would never have to rush to match
her speed since they would already be going at the same speed as her.
He
asked, "Just how invisible is the Shadow's Claw? When the
Slirkstrith comes out of this system's heliosphere in a couple of days,
would
we then be able to sneak right up alongside her without being detected?"
"Yes, that would not be a problem. They would never be looking
right next to them and even if they did, if we approach her straight
on, the stars would not be moving over the Shadow's Claw's surface in
relation to their scopes so they would not even see the 'wiggle' that
can sometimes give us away. The shroud extending from the back of
our ship covers our plasma cones completely from anyone looking from
the side, even at maximum thrust, so they wouldn't even be able to see
us if we had to keep accelerating to match the Slirkstrith's speed.
There is no chance they would detect
us. That sort of stealthy approach is precisely what this ship
was originally designed for. What is it you have in mind?" Sintas
asked.
"Well, back on Earth, we had some annoying youths who
would take part in a dangerous activity called 'skitching'. It
involves riding up to a large moving vehicle on a small board with
wheels on it called a skateboard. They would grab onto the
vehicle and hang on and 'share' the vehicle's speed and acceleration to
get pulled along with it and go wherever it goes at whatever speed.
Wouldn't it be possible for us to skitch the Slirkstrith and
actually 'share' the space warps and wormholes she generates?"
This time everyone's eyes went wide as they pondered the possibility.
Srythryn
finally slapped the table hard and shouted, "By the Granth's barnacled
buttocks, that is an amazingly clever solution! I would never
have thought of it! There is no reason why it would not work.
If we could stick right alongside her, we could make every jump
she makes without even having to know where she is going! She
could carry us across the
universe through any number of jumps and we would not need to expend
any antimatter at all bending space or opening wormholes to keep up
with her as she would be doing all the work! It is absolutely
brilliant!"
Sintas laughed and said, "Jake, are you certain you
are not part rhuxus? We value stealth and efficiency above all,
and your solution is the epitome of both! That would solve all of
our timing problems! We do not need to know when she will jump,
or where, or how fast she will be going when she enters the system or
which side she will be coming in from. We'll be right beside her
and matching her speed right from the start and we will never let her
out of our sight. Whenever she bends space and slips through a
wormhole we will slip right through the same hole with her to emerge
right where she does and she will never be the wiser. It is an
absolutely perfect solution to our greatest problem!"
Jake suddenly felt a presence encroach into
his mind and he knew immediately it was Voph trying to communicate with
him. He tried mentally averting his gaze as he'd done before and
the presence grew stronger. Jake was suddenly filled with a
feeling of joyous celebration. It felt sort of like the psychic
equivalent of a high five. Suddenly he felt a slight sadness and
a sense of loss. Once again he could not really make sense of the
emotions out of context. The two feelings simply didn't make
sense together.
He then began to sense a frustration at his lack of comprehension and the
presence quite suddenly vacated his mind, and the zeth then raised a
hand with one finger pointed up and waved it around as though he were
trying to make a point.
Rhokki
then grinned and said, "The zeth
says that he feels that the First Ones may have made the single
greatest tactical error in their many billions of years of existence by
plucking such an excellent example of a human off the Earth before
destroying it. This resistance has gone from struggling to
survive, to utter failure, only to be brought fully around to almost
certain success by the ideas of just one man who did not really exist
in the wide universe until just months ago. He says Jake may be
the one person ultimately responsible for bringing about the removal of
the First Ones as a threat to all races in the known universe. I
think he is right. He also says that he feels truly sad that they
could not have met the human race before the First Ones had the chance
to ravage it. He pledges all of the resources that the remaining
zeths can bring to bear to help Jake round up all the remaining humans
when this is all done and settle them somewhere safe and protect them
so that they can
rebuild their wonderful race once more."
"Thank you,
Voph. The human race will need all of the help it can get so I
will definitely hold you to that offer once all of this is over," Jake said, then he
looked around the room at all the grinning faces and said, "You all
certainly know how to over inflate your praise. One good idea does
not a genius make."
Srythryn
grinned further and said, "I
haven't been present for all of them, but I know for a fact there were
quite a few more than just the one good idea. In any case, you
have once again shown your ability to think outside the box. You
have
eliminated our greatest hurdle with a most elegant and simple solution.
I can think of nothing else that would impede us. I believe
we might just have a solid chance at pulling this off."
Sintas
said, "Agreed. It is simply a matter of nailing down the timing
for the start of the encounter. That may be more easily done when
we've followed the Slirkstrith for the five weeks it will take to
resurrect the other Srythryn. It will all depend on the speed
they are going when they jump in to the siskreth system and we won't
know what that speed will be until the time comes."
Srythryn
said, "They will have already been accelerating hard to get out of
the miquanowan system and they will have built up a tremendous speed.
They will do a hot jump and then turn around to use the maximum
thrust to decelerate into orbit as they approach the planet. We
can use their thrust cones as an indicator to know when we need to
begin our attack as they will suddenly to a length of more than sixty
miles by the time they reach full thrust. In fact, I know
her specs quite intimately. Since we will know precisely how fast
she is going when she enters the siskreth system, I will be able to
calculate, with timing down to within minutes, the moment that they
will need to begin hard braking to decelerate into orbit using the
moons and the planet itself for gravity assist. They will have
everyone in acceleration seats before then so we can begin our engagement
even before they begin to ramp the thrusters up. It would be my
preference if we could intercede before she increases thrust to full
and kills all of the life in the jungle and ocean. Anything we
can do to minimize the impact on the Slirkstrith would be appreciated.
If she ends up having to run from the collective after all of
this then she
will be on her own and she will not be able to sustain her population
without the animals. We
must ensure her survivability."
Sintas nodded and said, "That
should not be a problem. We will not put the Slirkstrith at risk any more
than necessary, Captain, you have my word. We can reveal
ourselves at any time we choose once she is in the siskreth system.
When they see us they will realize they can neither accelerate,
nor decelerate, or they risk losing range on us. We simply need
to turn about and show her our thrust cones to expose ourselves at the
moment we see their plasma cones begin to grow towards maximum thrust.
They will shut down their thrusters immediately when they see us,
but we will know that the entire crew will be in the emergency section
at that time and they will not be able to launch anything more than a
slow trickle of fighters at us."
"Good," Srythryn said, "So
then, the sequence of events is simple. We reveal ourselves just
as they are about to go to maximum thrust. They launch the first
few squadrons as we bring ourselves up alongside and fire the first
round of disrupters. The fighters will lose their shields.
We choose one that still is maneuverable and yank the pilot
aboard. You squirt me onto that ship. It will of course
still be tuned to the Slirkstrith's shields so I can fly through them
and dock with her. Once aboard I can immediately access the
computer and shut down both the launch control and weapons control
systems and then alter the security to lock out the other Srythryn so
that the Shadow's Claw is out of danger. I then make my way into
the lackeys' section and disable the shielding around their
network room so that I can enter it to inject the zeth program.
Then what? When do I cut off the favors?"
"Rhokki? What does the zeth say is the sequence after that?" Sintas asked.
They
waited as Rhokki absorbed the zeth's response and then the big cat
said, "Voph says the device to cut off the favors cannot be fired until
the zeth program finishes its work. It relies on the QECH system
to communicate with the First Ones' network and the device is not selective and will kill
all QECH communications within the Slirkstrith by destroying their photons. He reminds you
that the device to cut off the favors is primarily a fail-safe in case
the plan fails and the program does not manage to locate and destroy the QECH hub for
the favors. If the plan succeeds, then all favors everywhere in
the universe will be cut off and both the Slirkstrith and the planet
will be safe without any further intervention required."
There
was another pause while Voph communicated with Rhokki and then the lion
said, "He says Srythryn will also be carrying a zeth communicator that
uses their hub-and-spoke quantum entanglement system. Once the
program locates and infiltrates the QECH hub control system for the
favors and destroys it, it will communicate its success or failure back
to the zeths here. We will notify Srythryn and he will activate
the device if the attack was a failure. We should ensure that the
satellites are en route to the planet before then so that they will arrive
in orbit as close as possible to the moment the attack begins in order
to protect the planet. The timing will be tight, but it should be
safe. If the attack works as planned the planet and the ark ship
will be safe regardless, but if it fails, the satellites will be in
orbit to protect it and Srythryn will be in position to fire off the
portable device to protect the Slirkstrith."
Srythryn nodded and
said, "Understood. I will only need to activate the zeth device
to cut off the favors if the attack fails. In that case, we will
need to be sure that the Slirkstrith is made aware of everything.
She will need to defend our world in case there is retaliation
brought in from other member races of the collective. She will be
able to hold out for quite a long while, but I am not sure that it will
be long enough."
"You
can count on the Shadow's Claw to do anything she can to help.
Though we wouldn't be able to offer much in the way of brute
force our stealth and speed can be a great asset," Sintas said.
Voph
once again raised his hand and everyone waited while Rhokki processed
what the zeth was telling him, and then the big cat said, "Voph has
been in touch with the remaining people of his race that are now
trapped outside of their own galaxy. He says they were kept back
for this very type of contingency. They will begin a push to
interstellar space and will be ready to jump to just outside the
siskreth system as soon as our engagement is complete. Whether we
are successful or not they will drive inward to defend the siskreth
home world to the death. Their force is substantial and should be
able to hold out for years if needed. There are many additional
groups of capital ships that have been in hiding since the beginning of
their engagement against the collective. They have been holding
them back until they were needed for a final push. They feel that
this is it and they will also be calling on those groups for
reinforcement."
Srythryn smiled and bowed to the zeth and said,
"You have my thanks, Voph. The Slirkstrith was designed
specifically to defend against your most powerful capital ships.
Never in my wildest thoughts could I have imagined the zeths
would be the ones coming to our aid against the whole of the
collective. With the aid of your people I am confident we have a
solid chance at survival."
The zeth nodded.
"Excellent,"
Sintas said, "This meeting was even more productive than I'd hoped.
I feel confident that we will succeed. When the Slirkstrith
emerges from the heliosphere we will sneak right up alongside her and
see where she takes us next. You are all dismissed."
They all stood and left the meeting room.
Now
that they'd hammered out the details of how they were going to approach
their attempt at destroying the QECH hub for the nanos, Jake was truly
beginning to think it might actually be possible to pull it off.
Jake and Srythryn headed straight back towards Jake's quarters to pick up where they'd left off on their reunion.
***
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Feedback
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