[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Sorry for the delay, people!



-----PROLOGUE TO PART TWO-----

Lieutenant Tarm Heggson felt happy. Very happy. He was assigned to take the first ship of the Glasgow-class to Yhetan IV, where its captain would assume command. But, until that time, Heggson was in charge of this new type of freighter, a herald of the future design of cargo ships.

After the encounter with the Kent warship, now just over ten years ago, Central Command decided something had to be done. The next time something like this would happen, there probably wouldn’t be a ship with a CO like Tamarillho – who was seen as the greatest hero in civilian space flight to date – in the vicinity. And if the next time was anything like the first time, billions of lives could be at stake.

A top-secret think-tank of the best civilian and military ship engineers were put to work designing the “freighter of the future”. Five years of designing and another five of building and testing prototypes and refining the desing had culminated in the brand-new Glasgow class of “hybrid” freighters.

The Glasgow carried three heavy main guns, and large batteries of secondary and tertiary weapons. Unlike the old cargo ships, which were only adequately equipped to handle a smallish meteor, this new civilitary ship could take on some of the older Cruisers still in service in the enemy fleet and come out on top. And that was just this ship. What Central Command and their think-tank were planning for the future, up until over a century ahead, was even more staggering.

*****

“OK, set course for Yhetan system, coordinates 6.953 M-clicks by 2.402 M-clicks.”
“Roger.”

The Devonshire Warp Point loomed ahead, though not in the center and focus of the main screen but on a picture-in-picture tactical view mode. Still, it was getting closer. Already, a faint blue spot could be discerned in the distance, slightly larger than the infinite amount of stars surrounding it in the background.

*****

“Entering warp point dead zone, approaching event horizon.”
“Activate Tanner-shift compensators.”
“Aye, activating compensators.”

A semi-faint, deep rumble could be heard emanating from what seemed to be the floor as the advanced compensators started generating a ship-wide insulation field.

As the NKCX Faint Hazard entered the warp point event horizon, Heggson’s vision went slightly blue for a moment, until the compensators had found the correct frequency for the insulation field.

“This is much better than on the Drizzle,” he thought. “That old beaut didn’t have these new-fangled Tanner-shift things. At least when I get back here, she’ll be outfitted with ‘em too. Thank Gazhnah. No more spending days out cold in a bloody transpace tunnel.”

*****

The Faint Hazard approached the other side of the warp conduit, when Heggson’s (temporary) TO suddenly called out to him.

“We’ve got an incoming UFO, semi-organic, size of a human! Wait..... I’m picking up signatures of nanos!”
“Course?”
“Going to pass by us narrowly, sir. Ten 2T-clicks away. You could grab it by sticking your arm out the window.”
“You say it’s the size of a human, with nanos?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s exactly what I’’m going to do.”

As he walked through the ship on his way to the primary airlock, he was lost in thought. Could it be true? But how? And, if true, how come the nanos didn’t deactivate themselves? Only active nanos would be detected by a general scan. Something strange was going on here. Something very strange.

*****

“Grappler arms standing by.” the computer informed Heggson. He pressed some onscreen keys and watched the control screen turn into a visual, full-color display of what was going on outside. The main cam showed a smallish, light-blue form floating past. As the camera focused on it, a smaller screen popped up, showing what was directly in front of the grapplers. He recognized the shape as a human form, clearly with a nano-vacc suit. Ten-year-old model. Everything checked out.

He carefully maneuvered the arms into position to grab the body, then pulled it into the airlock. When recompression had occurred, he went in and noticed the vacc suit seeming to oscillate slightly. As he moved closer, he could see that it wasn’t his vision playing tricks on him. He took a portable microscope out of a small compartment in the airlock, and zoomed in on the suit.

The nanos were active, all right.

But these weren’t ordinary ten-year-old nanos from a vacc suit. Something had happened to them.

Putting these thoughts aside, he placed the microscope back into the tool compartment and cautiously deactivated the suit’s helmet. As it pulled back, a human face appeared. The face of an unconscious person, not a dead one.

Captain First Class Elsee Tamarillho opened her eyes and knocked Heggson out with a firm blow.

-----END OF PROLOGUE-----