New Neighbors

Chapter 19

The next morning Jake was up way before Kate and had already been thinking about what was left to do before they went to the Organo system. About an hour after breakfast Jones came to see Kate and to ask Jake if he would like to join Amy and himself on a tour of the dreadnaught and maybe go on patrol with them. Jake kissed Kate and left with Jones for the dreadnaught.

Amy, Jake, and Jones met on the dreadnaught. John had said he wanted to stay and study the data more, he thought he might have found something they could use but needed to look it over again. Jones introduced the captain of the dreadnaught and the captain started the tour of the impressive ship. As the group walked around the ship it's captain, and Jones, pointed out the many differences and changes that had been done. They had just arrived in Engineering when an alert was sounded. The captain quickly contacted his bridge to see what was up. There were 10 ships coming into the system and they were mostly destroyers, with two ships that resembled troop transports. The scans showed that they were not PDF ships nor were they Iberian. The captain apologized to Amy and Jake as he ordered the ship made ready to depart the space dock, but commented that this way they could see the ship in action if they wanted to come along. Just as Amy was accepting the invitation another alert sounded, or rather the first alert was upgraded. The ships had fired on the picket ship when challenged.

Jake looked at Amy and then contacted his own ship and told them to prepare for an engagement. He told his XO to join the fight and that he expected to see them take out several of the hostile ships; he would be remaining onboard the dreadnaught. It took only about 10 minutes for both ships to get underway. When Amy and the rest got to the bridge the ship was just cloaking and the new information was that the new arrivals were trying very hard to breech the defenses. Amy asked for a damage report to their ships and was told that Toddus was once again the one to make first contact. His ship was unharmed but he was very busy avoiding the weapons of the ships.

When the captain of the dreadnaught had the tactical display brought up they could see the icon for Toddus' ship and the icons for the hostiles plus the ships coming to Toddus' aid. Jake noticed that their ships were flashing and asked about this. The captain explained that the flashing showed that the ships were cloaked and emitting a friendly IFF signal. Jake asked why there was a red triangle near Alpha II, the second planet that could support life. When the captain looked at the display he saw a second red triangle appear near Alpha II.

"Where did those two ships come from, and how did they get so far into the system without being intercepted?" the captain asked.

The response was that they had just appeared suddenly and that they appeared to be troop transports. Jones ordered three ships redirected to the area of those ships, one on the ships was Jake's battleship. Jake apologized but asked why some of the triangles were red and some green? Jones told them that the green ones were identified as Iberian, the red ones were hostiles that the system didn't recognize. Just as the dreadnaught got close enough to start engaging the hostiles a huge ship dropped out of hyperspace and was immediately indicated by a red triangle. The captain ordered the launch of missiles at the huge ship as soon as they could get a firing solution. Jones explained that this was just like the one that had caused so much trouble before.

The dreadnaught seemed to shake a little as the missiles took flight. The missiles traveled towards their target for about a second before they just vanished. Five seconds later the huge ship seemed to explode, but once the display reset the ship was still there. The weapons officer reported that the missiles had exploded right on target but the huge ship had moved at the very last second. The captain ordered another launch but this time with a spread to allow for any movement. The dreadnaught trembled again, and seven seconds later the huge ship exploded for real this time. The captain then turned his attention to the remaining hostiles.

The enemy destroyers were having problems, they could not seem to find, much less hit, the defending force. The battle lasted about another hour before the destroyers that were still capable tried to jump. Their jump didn't work as they were too busy trying to keep their shields intact. One destroyer did make a jump, only to appear near Alpha II. This destroyer just happened to jump right in the middle of the three ships that Jones had sent to that area. It was later after everything was finished that the action in the area of Alpha II was reported.

Later that night in Jake's Ready Room, as he was going over the after action report from his own ship, Jake got an idea as to what had happened after the ship was ordered to help defend Alpha II. Once the XO had arrived he remained cloaked and launched the first set of fighters before opening fire with his own guns. The enemy ships were sending many large shuttles down to the planet; scans showed that the shuttles contained many life signs, most likely ground forces. Allan, the XO, had a company of marines onboard and had them sent to the planet to start containing the enemy troops. This company just happened to contain a platoon that had been with Russell on Earth during his retaking of the cities there and they were ready to "rock and roll".

Allan opened up with main guns on the first transport ship, after asking the other two Alpha system ships to let him deal with one all by himself. The battleship was bigger than both of the other two ships put together. Besides Allan had something to prove, he wanted to show Jake that the crew was one of, if not the best that could be had. His ship had seen more action than any other ship in the Sol system. Allan had the fighters to focus on the engines of the transport first and the weapons second. He had his own weapons target the weapons on the transport, what few there were. Allan's transport did not last long before it was incapable of propulsion. Once the ship was disabled Allan sent a squad of marines over to see what they could salvage, he also sent four fighters in first. The rest of his fighters, after refueling and rearming, were sent to provide air-support for the ground forces.

The first fighter to enter the transport's hanger was fired on by small arms. The shooters all ended up with holes in their bodies. The fighter pilot reported that all they had found so far was reptiles, no bugs. Once the marines were onboard they started a level by level search of the ship. Allan had asked that they try and take as many prisoners as possible, but not to risk anybody's life to do so. They had over 100 prisoners by the time the ship was completely under their control. The captain of the transport had not survived the taking of the bridge. Allan's forces had taken only two losses and one injury.

The fighters assigned to air-support were having a devastating effect on the ground troops. It seemed that the troops were more interested in trying to setup a secure base than defending themselves. The platoon of marines that had been with Russell used the same tactics they had used on Earth, silent, invisible, and deadly. The reptiles had managed to unload and setup a small amount of artillery that caused a problem until the area was strafed by four fighters - end of problem. When it was all over Allan had lost three marines to local wildlife and had acquired 500 more prisoners. The Marine captain reported that while the reptiles were a strong and aggressive force, they did not seem to know how to deal with the guerilla tactics that the marines used.

The final entry in the report that Jake was reading contained a surprise. There had been five humanoids found on the transport. They were all identical and all said their names were SuLak. This got Jake's attention very quickly. He summoned his XO and had Amy and Jones notified of this discovery. When the XO told Jake that the five were in the ship's brig and had been scanned for implants, which were removed, Jake was delighted. Jake asked that DNA from each SuLak be taken to Amy's ship as soon as possible so AL could compare it to his records from the original crew.

When Amy received the report of five SuLak's being found on the transport, her first thought was "Now we hear from the Empire again". Amy contacted Jake and asked for DNA samples and was told that the collection was in progress and the samples would be sent to AL. Amy reminded Jake to be very careful with these prisoners, they had a habit of exploding things, like themselves and ships. When Jake told her he remembered his history lessons very well, Amy told him that she knew there was a reason besides his looks and body that she loved him. Amy said that they would question the SuLaks in the morning. That way AL would have plenty of time for his comparison and analysis of the DNA samples.

The next morning Amy and AL, in avatar form, met with Jake. AL explained that his analysis of the DNA had shown only minor variations to the DNA of the original SuLak. One thing was unusual, these five had a gene that was usually only found in beings with telepathy. AL suggested that they be isolated and shielded from each other. AL had also determined which one was the most dominant and suggested that one be questioned last. Jake had the first one AL chose taken to an interrogation room.

As soon as Jake entered the room his head felt like it would explode. When Jake fell to the floor, one of the guards stunned the captive on orders from Amy. It took a few minutes before Jake regained his senses after the Auto-Doc examined him. The Doc told Jake and Amy that Jake was very sensitive to the telepathy. When AL shared the genetic info with the Doc about these captives the Doc ran a genetic survey on Amy and found that she had the same gene except it wasn't active, yet.

After Jake was feeling better, AL told them that screening for this type ability wasn't usually done unless the subject was thought to have the rare telepathic trait. That was why they had not known about Jake and Amy before this. AL suggested that all personnel be scanned for this trait as soon as possible. Amy asked how they were to question these "men" if Jake, and possibly others were so easily effected. AL told her that he could prevent any further occurrences by having the ship make a special headpiece for the captives. This would basically prevent them from using their abilities. Amy told him to proceed.

After the headpiece was in place, SuLak-5 was allowed to wake-up. To test the headpiece Jake once again entered the room. There was no reaction this time from Jake. They started questioning SuLak-5. At first there was very little response that was helpful. But as they kept at the questioning Amy got the impression that he was trying to hide something. As she sat there thinking about how to proceed, she noticed that she seemed to know what he was going to say before he actually said it. She also started to notice that she could concentrate really hard and "hear" the correct answer before he had a chance to change it. Amy kept this development to herself, for now, but made notes as to what she thought she could "hear".

Each of the SuLaks were questioned in order, with the one that AL determined was the most dominant last. By this time Amy had found that she was "hearing" Jake before he spoke. She found that with the last SuLak it was almost too easy to "hear" him. This one was trying to be even more obtuse than his "brothers". But Amy was "hearing" more than he knew. After about an hour, Amy called a halt to the proceedings saying that they weren't getting anything useful.

It was only after they were alone in Jake's Ready Room that Amy mentioned what she had noticed and what she had "heard". Jake was skeptical until Amy told him to quit thinking about what he wanted to do that night in bed. Jake turned bright red. AL had the Doc do another scan and it showed that Amy indeed was becoming more receptive to telepathy, and her own ability was starting to emerge. AL explained that with practice Amy might be even stronger than SuLak-1; but, she would need to learn control. To learn how to turn the voices down, up, on, or off so as not to invade someone's privacy without due cause. They had been questioning these men all day and Amy was exhausted so they agreed to meet with the command staff the next day to tell them what had been found out from these five men.

After a light supper and a nap Amy sat down to record her notes into something more concise and logical.

From what I was able to "hear" from the minds of these men it appears that the Empire is the guiding force behind the Iberians and that with their help the Empire had been able to bring in the new reptilian allies since the reptilians were very easy to control. The telepathy had been discovered by mistake and then the ones with the ability had been cloned to create a large group to control the Iberians and the reptilians. SuLak-1 was the commander of the force that we defeated yesterday. I have come to the conclusion that even his ability is limited in the amount of distance that he can control others. He uses his "brothers" as "repeaters" for his commands or instructions. That may be the reason that the reptilians that landed on Alpha II were so interested in building a base and not defending themselves. The last command that SuLak-1 had given was to build a secure base and that was what they had tried to do.

From what I was able to gather, each of the reptilian forces must have a SuLak on board to control the crew. Iberians are used for their more advanced space technology. The reptilians only had minimal space capabilities and no hyperspace flight craft before being taken over. The large moon-like ship was an original design of the reptilians that has been modified by the Iberians and the Empire to serve them better in battle. It appears that the reptilians are used as ground forces, while the Iberians are the ones used in flight. I was also able to pickup the frequency for their marker buoys. I will make this information available to Jones so that he can locate and either capture or destroy the buoys in this system, and relay the same information back to Sol for their benefit.

After saving her notes and conclusions, Amy decided that she needed to practice using her new ability. At first she had to concentrate very hard to "hear" anything but as she kept trying it became easier. She was able to pickup the thoughts of her temporary XO while he was on the bridge. It seemed that he had a certain female on his mind and was anxious to get off-duty to go to her room. Amy kept scanning for thoughts and happened upon the thoughts of two crew members in the middle of sex. That proved interesting for a while. She was getting tired again and decided to call it a night, tomorrow would be another long day.