Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles 7: Renegades Read Free Page A

mission. That said, the ancient AI knew its designers had built it to sterilize instances of organic life that threatened its progenitor’s galactic dominance.
    As the various subsystems came awake, the ancient craft realized many of its internal systems had failed and were in need of repair. It was unable to communicate with its creators. This was unfortunate as it would like to confirm its current orders. The ship was unsure if its creator’ failure to respond was due to a malfunction on its end or if something unexpected had happened to the Uruk.
    Slowly, gravity repulsers on the ancient weapons platform shed the material that had been cloaking it for eons. As more if its surface was exposed it was able to gather more energy from its surroundings. After a couple of thousand years, a bare blink of time, it had gathered enough energy in its storage cells to ignite its antimatter reactors. Massive amounts of energy began to course through the ship’s systems. Some of those systems immediately burned out but the ship’s repair drones immediately began the task of rebuilding and repairing the failed components. In less than one hundred additional years the ancient ship was finally ready to resume its mission of sterilization. It detected movement in its vicinity.
    Several thousand kilometers off its port side a small survey craft explored an odd looking asteroid field. The captain of the ship suspected this was the site of an ancient space battle and that many of the rocks they were approaching were in fact dust-covered remnants of that battle. He was just about to make an entry in his log when this ship was hit with a high energy x-ray laser pulse. Death was instantaneous. A short time later the lifeless hull of his ship was pulled onboard a much larger craft. The ancient AI began digesting the primitive data core found on the tiny ship it had just collected. It seemed there was an entity known as the Galactic Coalition of Planets that would have to be dealt with. It analyzed the navigational database and set its new course accordingly.
    ***
    Cat looked across the table at the other two admirals. “So the Hupenstanii have developed a way of entering a hyperfold without utilizing a fixed jump point. Why haven’t they used it to circumvent the blockage the Grand Senate put in place? Why in the eighty plus years since this happened hasn’t somebody else developed the technology?”
    Bud Faragon leaned forward and rubbed his hands on the warm cup of coffee in front of him. “The Hupenstanii solution is based on a derivative of their multi-dimensional shield technology.”
    “That would make sense,” Cat said.
    Sherry raised an eyebrow.
    Cat noticed her expression and went on to explain. “The only practical way to circumvent the current restrictions on hyperfield jumps would be to pull and push the required energies from and to a higher dimensional plane. Create the right harmonic and the nearby dimensional planes start vibrating as well.”
    Sherry continued to look confused. Cat sighed and tried to explain again. “Imagine plucking a single string on a guitar. The strings on either side will begin to vibrate as well. The Hupenstanii draw energy from these higher dimensional vibrations and then shunt it back to the higher dimensions when it has accomplished its task.”
    “So why haven’t the Hupenstanii used this technology? Why are they still locked behind a blockage?” Sherry asked.
    Cat looked over at Bud Faragon. “If I had to guess, I’d say the Hupenstanii reached out to you eighty years ago because while they had the theory they did not have the manufacturing base to implement the theory.”
    Bud nodded. “They asked us for help and instead we cut them off from the rest of the universe.”
    Sherry nodded. “The entire region around their sole jump point has been mined with smart seeker bombs. Anything that tries to approach without the proper codes gets obliterated. There is a similar field on the other