Chapter 15
The Other Two Weapons
The week flew by and true to his word, Cliff called Colby. He said he was now ready to show him the other two weapons his people had designed and tested.
In the last few days nothing has happened, that is, as far as Colby knew. They say ‘no news is good news’, however, Colby was not convinced that this is true in this case. He had the feeling that due to only one Coordinator out in the field, who’s incognito, there is no one to transmit the bad news or any news for that matter.
Colby had found three of the new personnel, from his list of students, that could possibly fit the bill as an active Coordinator. Even with the apparent abilities of these three, it will take the concentrated effort from all departments to push these students through the final phases of training within the time frame he was looking at.
The implanting operations themselves will take numerous hours of intensive, meticulous and demanding involvement from every physician that control has on board. The medical procedures had been perfected and all the available short cuts are now normal procedure. Aside from the operations, healing time has to be included as a norm.
That is not the end to the implants, after healing the individual has to have time to acclimate in order to use these devices.
These things were in the mill and Colby guessed he should now concentrate on the weapons that Cliff will be showing today.
As Colby entered the lab, Cliff looked up. “Hey Tom, good to see you again.”
“Thanks Cliff, you too.” Colby replied. “You got time for me now or are you too busy?”
“No, no, you're up, you’re next on my list of things to do.” Cliff finished what he was writing and closed the small book he was using. He rose from his desk and said. “Follow me.”
They went through the security access to the lab in the back portion of the weapons development department. The sign on the entrance door read, ‘Danger, Weapons Testing’ unauthorized personnel prohibit, visitors must be escorted. A red light rotating above the door warned that a test was in progress. Cliff and Colby waited until the light was turned off before they entered.
Once inside Cliff led Colby over to a unit about the size of a small ground car with numerous short spears extending out from the center. “This is the fifth item I wanted to show you. It is installed in the payload bay of our Coordinator’s ship. It is designed so that the ship can take a blast point blank, as close as three hundred meters, from a medium sized battle cruiser.” Cliff winced as he said this. He knew the power of a medium size battle cruiser.
“This unit will protect the ship from that power?” Colby asked and Cliff shook his head.
“Not protect, it is more like deceive.” Cliff replied.
“Ok, that confuses me.” Colby said as if he was giving up.
“What happens is the ship seems to disintegrate and be destroyed by the blast. There will be enough debris left in the area to convince even the hardest to fool individuals of the ship’s destruction.” Cliff was having a great time with this explanation and he had Colby going.
“Great, some weapon,” Colby said. “becoming floating debris after being blasted out of space. That would really impress your enemy, in fact they would probably die, die laughing that is, if he or she laughs.”
“Let me continue, please.” Cliff held up his hand to stop the input. “What actually happens is a sensor picks up the enormous build up of energy coming toward your ship. This activates the warp mechanism and warps the small ship some light years away into a distance preselected sector. Remember, this is an extreme situation and will only happen if there are no other avenues of escape available.”
“Well that’s a lot better.” Colby had to add.
“True, you and your ship will survive but, due to the need for maximum deception, pilot and crew will be violently projected from zero to high warp speed at maximum acceleration. The crew will be left disorientated for at least one hundred and sixty eight hours real time. Not only that, all exterior items, not connected to life support or emergency communication, will be jettisoned from their mooring and left as space wreckage.”
“That is a long time to be out.” Colby said.
“That is the reason for leaving the wreckage. Seventeen point eight percent of your ship will be left to receive the enemy’s weapon blast. This will aid in your deception, hopefully convincing your attacker that you and your ship have been totally eliminated. If for any reason, your attacker feels that you were not destroyed, you are dead meat.”
“What is the wreckage made of?” Colby asked.
“You would lose all exterior equipment, shields, guns, redundant portal covers and anything else that would not compromise the environment inside the ship. This loss of equipment and your disorientation would render you incapable of defending yourself. Also, if for any reason your attacker is not totally convinced of your destruction and they do a simple warp wave search, they will see that something fair sized had left the blast area at warp speed.” Cliff paused.
“I know all vehicles leave a traceable wave that can be followed by an alert navigator.” Colby stated.
“That’s correct and that is the reason the destruction of your ship must appear to be complete in every sense. Amongst the debris that is jettisoned will be some small hologram projector. These will give the visual impression that your ship was still there when the cruiser’s blast hits it. We can only hope, if it comes down to this situation, that they will accept what their eyes tell them.”
“I know this is a last ditch effort, I just hope none of our men get in the situation where this will be their only option.” Colby added.
“There is no way I can or want to demonstrate that unit’s operation, you will just have to take my word for its operation.” Cliff said.
“There is possibly a sixth item but it's another one that I can’t demonstrate for you. It actually has been worked out in theory only. Everything says it can be used safely. The main drawback is that it can be used one time and one time only. It simply won’t work again. Once it is used, everyone in the galaxy will be immune to it.” Cliff paused but Colby could tell he wasn’t finished.
“What I like to call it,” Cliff started again, “is my Human Brain Reboot System. It seems it will clear all memory in all people for a period of approximately ten minutes. Before you ask, it does allow for the continuation of all involuntary systems, people will still live and breathe.”
“That is unreal.” Colby put in.
“It has a drawback, if it is a drawback, after one use all brains will create a secondary or backup system that will prevent a second loss of time. The second system will act like an uninterrupted power source which will have no loss of time or memory. However, during that first use, the Coordinator will have ten minutes of total control no matter where they are. This will be due to their being the only ones already having this secondary system built in. Another thing to remember, the ten minutes of loss time will not be notice by those who lost it.
“No way to test this one either, kind of like learning to be a suicide bomber, you only get one shot at it.” Cliff said as he and Colby headed back out of the lab.
“Thanks Cliff, these items could very well extend the life of this organization and give us a future.” Colby said as he shook hands with Cliff and headed back to his office.