Surface to Space, Group Conference: Secure Channel
Attendees:
Commander Ddraig: CSA-TET-1
Commander Tova: CSA-TET-2
Commander Kranz: CSA-TET-3
Senior Officers: CSA-TET-1, 2, 3
Layan: Chief Designer
Altai: Core Design Engineer
Jaak: Lode-Bearer-1
Dieter: Lode-Bearer-2
Tag: Lode-Bearer-3
Ambassador Schönheit: Hundeerde Presidentum Observer
Chancellor Saxe: (Well… because he thinks he’s important and insisted)
Friday — early afternoon, Condition YELLOW
The meeting between the three TET control rooms and the surface was virtually crowded.
The guidance and navigation officers had fine-tuned their lemon squeezer transmitters so that not one stray pip would leak out.
Commander Tova chaired the meeting.
Commander Tova: The battle at Foxtrot-Oscar-Bravo has concluded, and we succeeded in our objective to eliminate the bug swarm.
We are grateful to the Hundeerde Dog Squad for their invaluable assistance.
However, we are still a long way from winning this war.
Queen Anostosia has suffered a setback, but she will view this defeat as a grave insult to her overinflated abdominal ego.
She will be back — and this time she will again set her sights on one of our TETs.
We know that a single core blast is not sufficient to eliminate her ship.
This is where our Chief Designer, Core Design Engineer, and our three lode-bearers come in.
Layan and Altai — please outline the plan to power up each TET core and ultimately destroy the Bugaarian ship.
Layan: Thank you, Commander.
We now have our three lode-bearers each stationed on a TET.
They have brought with them a cache of cyan stones that the core engineers will need to install into each of the core reactors.
We calculate that this will increase the power output of each core by another seventy-five percent.
However, this will still not provide sufficient power for one TET in isolation.
Altai: The Bugaarian bio-ship, part living and part machine, is protected from the external geomagnetic plasma storm that a regular core blast generates.
What is needed is a blast that can penetrate directly into the interior of the ship.
At the right time, to be determined by Commander Tova, the lode-bearers will need to simultaneously manipulate their lode-stones into the TET cores.
This will activate the tri-luminal effect and power up one TET core sufficiently to unleash the final core blast.
Layan: This blast will require a precise hit on the forward distal corpus cavernosum firing nacelle of the ship — an opening only two metres wide.
This will start an internal chain reaction throughout the inner corpus spongiosum, sealing itself within the biomechanical walls of the ship.
The shock waves will be tremendous — a real bug-quake.
Dieter: So, what you’re saying is that we’re gonna fire a buzzy-bug straight up that bug ship’s whizz-stick?
Layan: Yeah. Pretty much.
There was a slight uncomfortable silence while all the males on the surface and in space squirmed ever so slightly in their seats.
Altai: We will only have one shot to get this right, so we need to take our time and all do our jobs perfectly to make it count.
No pressure.
The meeting was interrupted by a beep on the communications console.
Hanne: ALL STATIONS — COMMS: She is coming.
Rönd: FLIGHT — TACTICAL: We will be within DELTA-1’s striking range in one-five minutes.
Commander Tova: ALL STATIONS, ALL STATIONS: Condition RED.
Core engineers and lode-bearers — you know what to do.
Activate Operation Whizz-Stick.
Cyanos Geosynchronous Orbit
The effect of Condition RED was immediate.
Personnel on all three TETs swung into their assigned Condition RED action stations for the second time that day.
The three core engineering officers on each TET simultaneously swept up their young lode-bearers and headed down the elevators to the engineering compartment, where their crews were already standing by.
On TET-2, Blaze and Dieter were met by engineering compartment lead Malik.
Malik: How long do we have, Chief?
Blaze: Estimate less than ten minutes.
We need to get the main cache of stones correctly installed in the box before the three boys activate the effect.
Similar scenes were simultaneously playing out in the engineering compartments on TET-1 and TET-3, with their crews working as fast as they could to install the new cache of stones into the core reactor — commonly called the box.
This was normally a very precise process that might take several hours to add even one extra stone.
Now they had about 10 minutes to add several hundred.
It was time to work fast.
Blaze turned to Dieter.
Blaze: I guess now would be a good time to ask if you still have your stone?
Dieter grinned, opened his leg pocket, and took out his stone.
It was glowing and pulsing brightly.
Dieter: Well, that is a good sign — it’s glowing already!
Blaze: We need to get you and me patched through to the two other core engineers and your friends so we can all coordinate for the effect.
COMMS — CORE: Ready for engineering voice loop uplink.
Hanne: CORE — COMMS: Working with TETNO now to establish three-way loop. GENO is making attitude adjustments for the secure link.
Stand by.
There were a few tense moments while they waited for the link to be established.
Hanne: CORE — COMMS: Inter-engineering compartment voice loop established — you are secure. Go ahead, CORE-2.
Blaze: CORE-1, CORE-3, this is CORE-2: Report stone loading status.
Límón: This is CORE-1: Stones are six-six percent loaded.
Edan: This is CORE-3: Our stones are at seven-one percent loaded.
Blaze: CORE-2 reports we are six-eight percent loaded.
Another urgent-sounding voice broke onto the loop.
Rönd: BREAK-BREAK: ALL-CORE — TACTICAL-2: DELTA-1 range to strike — three minutes. We need that core boost in the next two minutes.
Blaze: TACTICAL-2 — CORE-2: We’ll be ready.
Blaze looked across and made a shovelling motion to Malik.
Another tense minute passed, running the clock down even closer to the moment when the Bugaarian ship would be within striking range.
Edan: This is CORE-3: Our stones are loaded!
Límón: This is CORE-1 — we are nine-eight… wait…!
One hundred! Standing by for lode-bearer activation.
Blaze: CORE-2: We are done!
Blaze muted his loop and turned to Dieter.
Okay, buddy — you and your friends are up. Give ’em a call.
This was the moment — would their plan work? What would their stones do?
Dieter activated his communicator.
Dieter: Lode Be-aroow-ers… aroow-reyou red-deey?
Whether it was nervousness, the pressure of the moment, or both, Dieter’s normally deep teen voice chose that very moment to break — he snuffled, shook his head, and tried again.
Lode-bearers! — are you ready?
Jaak: LODE-STONE-1 — is burning bright and I’m standing by.
Tag: LODE-STONE-3 is ready — and so am I!
Dieter: LODE-STONE-2 is ready — and I’m ready too!
Rönd: Three-zero seconds!
Commander Tova: LODE-BEARERS! ACTIVATE!
Then, all together, the three boys stretched out their arms and opened their paws.
The three cyan stones rose gently a couple of centimetres from their upturned paws and began to rotate.
The stones glowed brighter.
A myriad of piercing blue shapes and patterns, mixed with deep azure indigos, swirled within.
Across the stations, the stones in the cores began to hum and vibrate at different, distinct frequencies that filled each TET with a single note of sound.
TET-3 sang the highest tone.
TET-1 carried the middle.
TET-2 resonated with the lowest.
The stones revolving above the boys’ paws became completely translucent with diamond-like clarity, emitting a light that intensified with every passing second.
Slowly, the stones rose higher and drifted towards the core reactor portals.
The lead engineers, having just finished adding the final stones from the cache, stood ready.
They activated the pinholes in the core portal curtains one last time — openings just large enough to allow the final three lode-stones to pass through into their cores.
Simultaneously, on three stations, three stones slipped through.
The portal pinholes closed.
Commander Tova: CORE — report!
Límón: LODE STONE-1 — is in!
Blaze: LODE STONE-2 — it is in!
Edan: LODE STONE-3 — it’s in!
Another moment passed, then…
VAAAAWOOOOOOSH!
There was no slow build-up this time.
The three lode-stones shot from their cores at hypervelotic speed, streaking toward the next station and covering the 33,000 km distance between them in a fraction of a second.
They did not stop.
They did not slow.
A triangular line of crackling blue light, 99,000 km across, suddenly connected all three TET stations.
Rönd: ALL STATIONS — tri-luminal connection complete!
The three single notes that filled each TET merged into one tri-harmonic chord.
In addition, a new phenomenon occurred.
Not only did the three TET cores connect, but this time three 33,000 km lines of crackling blue light extended from each TET down to the surface of Cyanos, forming the frame and fourth apex of a tetrahedron.
The TETs were now drawing massive amounts of energy directly from the core of Cyanos.
Límón: CORE-1 is at two-seven-three percent and rising!
Blaze: CORE-2 — two-eight-six percent and rising!
Edan: CORE-3 — three-zero-zero percent and holding!
Rönd: BREAK! BREAK! BREAK!
DELTA-1 is firing!
Commander Tova: Brace for impact!
The venom pulse from the Bugaarian ship slammed into the A-C-D face of TET-2.
The station shook and gave such a great heaving shudder that it spilled Calico’s hot cup of coffee into her lap.
Calico: Myeeeeryoooooooow!
The TET’s shields held.
VROOOOOOOMPPH!
It was hard to describe, but there was something like an inward sucking sound, punctuated at the end with a thump, that rushed towards and stopped at TET-2.
The sparking blue lines of crackling energy connecting the three TETs and the surface of the planet disconnected.
All three lode-stones, still shining with diamond-bright intensity, had stopped right in the centre of TET-2’s core.
TET-2 was now brimming and overflowing with supercharged energy.
The tri-harmonic chord built to a crescendo and permeated every part of the station.
Blaze: CORE is at nine-zero-zero percent!
It’s gonna blow!
It did.
With no command given, TET-2 blasted its core.
It had one target.
A direct impact on a two-metre-wide opening on the whizz-stick at the front of the Bugaarian ship.
Rönd: It’s gone — look! My God!
Dieter: Hoo boy! I bet that tickled going in.
Previous: Episode 45 – All Lights Blazing
Next: Episode 47 – Cup of Tea and a Lie Down
Commissioned space battle images by Colourbrand
Screw Pile Developments 
BEAUTUFUL!!!! JUST BEAUTIFULL!!!!!
And, the big splat. Gonna need a lot of Windex for that one.
The details and the sheen on Chris’s Tets really came out phenomenally well.
Now… Calico, perhaps save the coffee for later while you’re not in the middle of battle, eh? 🙂
Calico not drink coffee? Yeah not gonna happen.
Poo. Can’t edit. I meant to say, save the coffee for later while you’re NOT in the middle of battle.”
I can loool.