nuclear center of the galaxy, not one of the bigger spirals further outward. Even though our galaxy is called the Milky Way because of the apparent cloud of stars as seen from Earth, there are vast distances between the stars. These areas we call dark space. This is where we Scouts operate best.”
“I’m sure you learned about the first galactic human settlements over a century ago. When our first long- range probes and scouts went out, they found our little corner of the galaxy was largely unpopulated and mostly devoid of life. We quickly populated human settlements on the few habitable planets in this part of the galaxy. Huge settlement ships were built and they carried mankind out into the far reaches of space. We populated the 10 closest worlds first and spread out from there. Those first settlers had it hard, and we lost a lot of good people. Life on the frontier before we came up with reliable long distance FTL communications 25 years ago was rough. There are now over 150 human-inhabited worlds and moons in this arm of the Milky Way.”
It wasn’t until our scouts pressed further outspiral, away from the core of the Milky Way, that we ran into the Moosilian Empire. The Moose were fairly benevolent and we signed the First Intragalactic Treaty with them in 2133. We agreed to the establishment of a buffer zone between our races. Trade is allowed and encouraged, but they don’t want us moving any excess population in there. Our patrol forces on the frontier guarantee we don’t trod in each other’s space. It’s held up pretty well.”
“Our scouts surveying inspiral found a similar situation. Life is not as common as most early philosophers, authors, and scientist expected. One scout pushing out further inspiral on a deep-space patrol found a curious artifact floating in open space. It was a spinning, glowing triangular dipyramid. They scanned it from all sides, recorded all they could, and would have brought it back to the nearest star base if it hadn’t been twice the size of their ship. After a great deal of study, the best human brains determined it was a no trespassing sign. The scouts had run into the frontier of the K’Rang Empire.”
“While the Moose are a benevolent race, as you know, the K’Rang are not. They are a rat nasty bunch and want nothing to do with humanity. In fact, their standard response to meeting a human ship in space is to immediately annihilate the human ship. No warning, no “get out,” they just blast away.”
“Actually, rat nasty is an inappropriate description of the K’Rang. They’re evolved from a cat-like species. They walk on two legs, but retain many feline traits and characteristics. They have the fur, claws, teeth, and balance of a cat. They can leap three times their own height. They are unbelievably quick. A K’Rang warrior can cover short distances with incredible speed. If they get in close, they can make full use of their claws and fangs. In space they react similarly. They like to get in and duke it out at close range — something we have learned to use to our advantage.”
“After the Capricorn War, which we and the K’Rang fought to a draw, we withdrew back from the frontier, established our mutual sensor and mine fields to provide advanced warning of any incursions, and pretended each other didn’t exist. No armistice or ceasefire — we just withdrew to lick our mutual wounds. Neither side able to gain the advantage. Neither side wanting to provoke the other has existed for quite some time. That situation, unfortunately, has changed.”
“Fourteen months ago, a survey team from Hodgkin’s World, Inc., in Capricorn, flew to examine some not so nearby star systems for human inhabitability. Mark Carter, Hodgkin’s World, Inc. president and CEO, wanted to export some excess population and gain some territory. His survey ship stumbled on a solar system the K’Rang were terra forming. As stupid as it was, Carter mounted an expedition of his own resources to take this world and the K’Rang terra forming technology for his own. Needless to say, K’Rang reinforcements showed up and wiped out the Hodgkin’s World fleet, but not before the Hodgkin’s forces had killed all the K’Rang terra forming party. Fortunately, Mr. Carter paid for his stupidity and perished along with his fleet.”
“The K’Rang stewed for a while and then tried to invade and take New Alexandria in the Scutum sector. Our new transporter gate allowed us to move in a massive fleet and annihilate their invasion force. They are arrayed in a purely defensive posture at this time. We hit them pretty hard and completely by surprise.”
“The K’Rang are no pushovers. They fight well and are fearless in battle. They have good tactics and adapt quickly to battle situations. We lost many ships to them in the Capricorn War. We captured a few of the K’Rang, but no matter what we do, they die in captivity. Our best minds think they just choose to stop living and die. We know more about their physiology than their military or society.”
“We watch them. They watch us. Half our Fleet intel guys say nothing will happen. Half say in the right situation, they will go on the offensive. Either way, we patrol and make sure they know we are there. They do the same thing. The longer this impasse continues, the more we build up the capability to use our transporter gates to quickly reinforce the frontier.”
“Our mission is to find out what the K’Rang are up to. We are not out there to start a war, but, hopefully, to keep one from happening. Keep that in mind as we patrol around the frontier. The buffer zone we and the K’Rang have set up is wide enough so any incursions won’t be a mistake.”
“We also have strict orders pertaining to any confrontation with the K’Rang. This is why I’m having this long chat with you this morning. It’s imperative these orders be followed completely.”
“The K’Rang don’t get to shoot first. Our orders are that we will not engage in any confrontation with the K’Rang unless they are firmly on our side of the buffer zone and we have an overwhelming numerical or tactical advantage. Our leadership wants to make sure we defeat the K’Rang in any engagement. Now, of course, those orders can and have been changed, but for now they stand.”
“Do you have any questions?”
“No, sir, I think I understand. We use overwhelming force or surprise when dealing with the K’Rang. We never intentionally fight from a weak position.”
“Good summation, Exec.”
Yeoman Benitez knocked, was told to come in, and brought Kelly a message to report to CMDR Timmons before he released his crew.
Connie Cortez saw to securing the Vigilant from work ups and helped Chief Blankenship to keep the crew gainfully employed until the Captain returned. She found several inconsistencies in the ship’s wiring, and set up several teams to trace wiring circuits for ship’s systems and correct the ship blueprints to match how things really were. She would have several things to say to the yard boss when she could break free. First, she needed a moment to spin down and retired to her cabin to work on paperwork.
She was exhausted, operating on about four hours sleep in eighteen for the entire cruise. She noticed that the Captain was overlapping the beginning of her watch and Chief Blankenship was overlapping the end of her watch. She changed her routine and overlapped theirs. That didn’t leave a lot of time for sleep. She would have to speak to the Captain about sleep discipline. It wouldn’t do to have the senior leaders suffering from sleep deprivation on a long patrol. Maybe it was just that they were all new in their jobs and things would settle down with more experience in the positions.
Even without the sleep loss, Connie would still have been beat. She had so much to learn. Even with the simulator time she put in, she had never piloted a spacecraft before. When LCDR Blake turned the controls over to her, she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. She had to admit it was a rush to have all the ship’s power in her hands. The majority of the time, she just roamed the ship and looked for things out of place.
She made a lot of on the spot corrections, like instructing the gunners to always leave their turrets locked facing forward when not actively manning the turrets. This kept the maximum firepower forward if needed in an emergency. She helped Chief Johnson fine-tune the sensors and win his bet with Chief B. She took a turn at cooking and taught Cookie one of her mother’s recipes for fried chicken, which he programmed into the replicators. She spent so much time with Chief Miller learning all the engineering systems that the Captain had to send Chief B to remind her that there were other parts of the ship she needed to learn.
It was a good first cruise for Connie. She looked forward to their mission.
Chief Blankenship had a chiefs’ meeting after the major elements of securing from the work ups were accomplished. She wanted to get a feeling from the chiefs on how their sections had done and what needed to still be improved. She also wanted a sense of how the new XO had done.
Chief Miller led off. “Engineering was in good shape. The new algorithms for the increased speed gave them better stability at all speeds. My section has all started on preparations for their proficiency exams. If there was anything that could be improved on, I don’t know what it could be.”
Chief Johnson was next. “The new XO is all right by me. She is technically proficient and not afraid to say she
