Chapter 56 - Can it Get More Unfriendly

"Tam, Tif!" James shouted. "What brings you here? And what about the training?"

"Madison wanted to go home and feed her son," Tiffany said. She was wearing a green hockey jersey. I looked at the logo and found that it was a wolf with a red cape in its mouth.

"Diana and Ingrid took over," Tamara said as she skated up to James. Her jersey was the blue of Alice's dress and had a grinning Cheshire Cat as its logo.

Their concubines were making their way onto the ice. None of them appeared to be confident. I could see Janice and Tina skate over. They offered support to the new skaters as they started around the rink.

"We thought it might be fun to come out here," Tiffany said. "Although this isn't a kind of skating I've done before."

"You skated?" James asked.

"Just rollerblading," Tamara replied. "It will be interesting to see how that experience helps or hurts."

James nodded. He seemed about to say more when Diana's voice rang out. "James, scanners are picking up a new jump point."

"What kind?" James asked. He had straightened up a bit. I glanced over to see Bethany and Kitty skating off the ice. They disappeared down the tunnel before Diana replied.

"The power levels and signature are Confed," Diana said. "But the vector doesn't fit. None of the systems nearby lie on the vector of this jump point."

"Do any Confed planets lie on the vector?" James asked. He started to skate towards the entrance to the ice. I followed.

"Yes," Diana replied. "But they are all on the far side of Earth as far as we are concerned. If the ship came from there, it's been in transit for ten weeks. Oh, wait, two more jump points just opened up on the same vector."

"James!" Colonel Johanes called out. "It's time to stop the games. You will present yourself for court martial in forty-five minutes."

"How many times do I have to tell you that you do not have that authority?" James asked.

"I don't?" Colonel Johanes tone turned suddenly amused. "Are you certain that I can't enforce my orders?"

"James," Diana called out. "We now have a scan of the first ship. It's got a Confed IFF, but I don't recognize the class."

"What do you mean you don't recognize the class?" Tamara called out. "Most of that is handled by the computers."

"Oh, we have that," Diana said. "But it's not one of the classes we've seen before. And I did a quick check, the class is not used in the district. It's some missile cruiser. The class is named after some person; I can't even try to pronounce it."

Bethany came running back from the locker room. She was barefoot and only wearing panties. She got to the edge of the ice and shouted to James. "James, something's wrong. Colonel Johanes has only been on Ishtar for about six weeks. There is no way that he could have sent out a message and got a response from Earth. If he knows what ship that is, the arrival was planned from the time he started on his journey here."

James finished skating over to the edge of the ice. He stepped off the ice and nodded to Bethany. "That finally puts a piece into the puzzle. Diana, can we signal Borneo?"

"I think it's the middle of the night there," Ingrid replied. "But I'll try. Hopefully there will be a quick response."

"What the ... ?" Diana called out in a confused voice. "James! The cruiser just launched missiles. Tracking indicates they are targeted at three of the boosters we use to enhance communications and our links to the scanners in the system."

"Can we stop them from impacting?" James asked.

"No," Diana replied. "We don't have any anti-missile defenses out that far."

"Does that impact a communication with Borneo?" Tiffany asked.

"No," Ingrid claimed. "At least not at this time. I've turned off the three repeaters. Perhaps the lack of active emissions will get the missiles to miss. The ones I'll use for the call to Borneo are still over a light hour away from the position of this ship."

"It shouldn't be firing," James growled. "But I'm guessing that this ship isn't here for just a friendly visit."

"Oh, the other two ships have come through. It's a pair of Patrician class corvettes. They are Ravenna and River Oaks," Ingrid replied. "The cruiser has modified its IFF, so I am not getting a name from it."

"What a surprise," James said. He had a smirk on his face. "So Colonel Johanes, I guess we now have proof that your research mission wasn't much about research. Do you even have a scientific background?"

"Of course I do!" The man screamed back. "I worked at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories and then later went on to work at Bell Labs."

"Yes," James replied. My master had a smile on his face as he stepped from the ice. "I can imagine they were happy with your abilities as a bottle washer and floor sweeper."

Silence was the only reply to James' last remark. He was walking down the tunnel back to the locker room. I hurried off the ice, following him. Behind me I could hear my sister concubines moving to leave the ice and join us.

By the time I reached the locker room, James was sitting on a bench and removing his skates. I dropped onto the bench next to him and put a hand on his arm. "James?"

He sat up and put his right arm around me. "Don't worry Little One," he said. "We are still protected and the ship cannot fire directly at us."

"But why are they doing it?" I asked. "It makes no sense. They were far from us."

"Someone wants to erase the colony," Bethany said. "Our existence is embarrassing to someone and he's acting to try to get the colony shut down so it will be forgotten."

"Umm, I thought we met the person who was in charge of colony selection when Ishtar was founded. Doesn't she now command a corvette in this district?" Tina asked.

"I don't think she's the one trying to erase the embarrassment," James said. "Others had to have been involved or thought they'd somehow profit from the founding of Ishtar. I'm guessing that we won't find a direct connection. The commands to Colonel Johanes came through the research departments, so it's a friend of the embarrassed officer pushing all of this."

"So what do we do?" I asked.

James shrugged. "Well, I figured we'd stop by the command post to at least look at the data. Then we have to find someone to be the commissioner of the hockey league."

"But we aren't ready to play!" Kitty cried out. "We've only had the one practice and that wasn't exactly organized."

"Craig can do it!" Tamara shouted. We all turned to look and found her standing at the entrance to the tunnel leading to the ice. "He's probably the best for it anyways, he already organizes the indoor soccer and the basketball games."

James nodded. He seemed about to say more when a screech of surprise rang out. "James!" Diana shrieked. "We have a new jump point. It's in line with Ursus. What do I do?"

"It's time to earn our wages," James called out. "Terrence, get to command and get the defenses up. Linus, Timothy, you should probably join him. Donna..."

"We don't get paid," she called back. "And I'll get medical up."

"James, I'm dropping the attempted call to Borneo. With the repeaters destroyed by the visiting cruiser and a new ship in the area, we need to start shifting the network. The ones that I'd use to call Borneo are going to fill the holes."

"Understood," James said. "Candi, Randi, can you back up Diana and Ingrid? The twins just got off a shift and deserve a short break."

"On it!" both ladies called out over the speakers. I bent down to frantically remove my skates as James continued. "Ingrid, do we have any communications from the three visiting ships? Anything at all?"

"No," she replied. "They haven't sent any messages. And the damaged they did to the sensor network means that Diana can't get a close scan of them at all."

I had pulled both skates off. I reached down to the bottom of my jersey top and was about to pull it up when James put a hand on my shoulder. "Meiko, get to our transporter station by the command post. We might need to teleport someone and I don't want to have Brad running the station."

"I'll go to protect her," Bethany called out. I glanced up at my sister concubine to see her hand her skates to Janice. "The others will finish putting things away. We should go."

Kitty and Brittany pulled me to my feet as Tina ducked down to pick up my skates. My two younger sister-concubines kissed my cheeks and then pushed me towards the airlock that separated the rink from our enclave. I stumbled a step toward it and then took off running. Bethany caught up with me as I reached the door.

We cycled through the airlock door together and then took off running down the corridor. The route from the rink to the teleportal room allowed us to circle the center of the enclave, so we did not run into anyone. We arrived at the room to find Lindsay and Tanya waiting with a gurney.

The duo smiled as we dashed inside. I ran to the console. A moment later, I was entering the sequence to unlock the colony's teleporter system.

At first, the system appeared to be working fine. I was able to power up the pad easily. Then something started to probe at the controls, clearly trying to identify the unique code for our command post pad.

"James!" I screamed out.

"What is the problem?" Bethany asked.

I looked at the controls. The readouts were not clear, but it appeared to indicate that another teleporter console was being used to try to force our pad to accept a teleport.

"We have outside interference," I called out. "Someone is trying to teleport to our pad."

"James!" Lindsay called out. Silence followed.

"They must have taken out the colony communication system!" Tanya called out.

"Great," Bethany muttered. "We need communications if we are going to do our jobs and someone is trying to take the system down. Meiko, are you going to be able to handle it?"

I looked at the signals coming from the controls. The attempt to take over was coming from another teleporter console. "I should be able to," I replied to Bethany "Any teleporter pad can be accessed remotely, but as long as I keep the controls here active, I can block the teleport. However, it does mean that someone has to stay here."

"Anyone?" Bethany asked.

"No. It has to be someone who can run the console."

There was a sigh from someone standing behind me. "Should I run to the command post and see if James is there?" I heard Tanya ask.

"He's there, but Colonel Johanes has somehow compromised the communications system," a male voice called out. I glanced over my shoulder to see Brad standing in the doorway.

"What do we do?" Bethany asked.

"Meiko," Brad called out,"can you keep anyone from teleporting in?"

"Yes," I said as I hit a series of buttons to block one attempt to force the pad to activate. "But I can't leave the console. Whoever is doing this is working from a full console and if I'm not here, he'll use the emergency protocols to force the pad to activate."

"Can't you just block those?" Bethany asked.

"No!" Lindsay and Brad said simultaneously. There was a short pause and then Lindsay continued. "It must be something the alien races that founded the Confederacy put in. You can delay the activation of an emergency protocol if you immediately enter the cancellation, but the lack of input would be taken as admission of an emergency. I learned that while taking the medic training."

"She's right," Brad said. "And that's doubly true for the teleporter pads, which are often used in emergency escapes. The only reason they can't just use the protocols is that the AI hasn't declared one. So there is a countersign that can be sent. If the AI declared the emergency, we couldn't stop them from forcing the pad to activate."

"We need defense," Tanya said. "Should I tell someone?"

Brad shrugged. "Deb and Amanda are already heading to the main doors. Barbara could come."

"She's getting in armor," a young voice called out.

"Adam?" I heard Bethany ask. "You're Barbara's son right? Is she coming here?"

"She needs to get into her armor first," Adam reported. "Also, the fourth ship has emerged. It's Athena. Unfortunately, we can't get through all the jamming to talk to her."

I heard Bethany shift. "We might need more gurneys," she muttered.

"Robert and Tom are supposed to handle that," Adam said. "Meanwhile, Reggie is organizing the older children to run messages. Anything more you need answered?"

Two different emergency orders hit the teleport pad. I had to scramble through more than thirty button presses to delay one while I blocked the other. "No," I said breathlessly as I fought to kill the second order. "But if we do need to teleport anyone injured, it's going to be a fight. Whoever is trying to break in isn't very good, but he's throwing a lot of effort into cracking the system."

"Brad, can you help her?" Bethany asked.

"No," Brad said. "I probably shouldn't admit this, but James had everyone qualified for the teleport pads undergo testing. Meiko is the best on the colony. I'd just get in her way."

I felt my face flush as I finally quashed the second command. There was a momentary break in the attacks and I shook my head. "I'm not that good."

"And Fran Tarkenton wasn't that great of a quarterback," Brad said. "Meiko, you tested as one of the top in the Confederacy. Trust your ability."

"What will you be doing?" Bethany asked.

"I came here to get a glimpse of what Meiko was doing. James wanted to know if this was a serious attempt to breech our defenses," Brad responded. "I need to get back to him. We also want to get the lasers up."

"What lasers?" Lindsay asked. "James told Colonel Johanes that they are down."

"The ones on the bluff work, but the connection to them doesn't. James suggested we prepare to teleport to them," Brad said. "Meiko, can you find the pad?"

I split my attention. Part of me continued to track the teleport system for attempts to bypass my console to initiate a teleport into the colony. The rest I used to call up a list of active pads in the system.

The first ones I found were the two on the planet, and then the ones on the docks that orbited Astarte and Inanna. There was a bit of trouble getting a complete list due to the cyber attacks, but finally I was able to confirm a connection to the new pad. Teleports would work, but with the attacks, it might take fifteen minutes to find a window.

"Found them," I said. "But my connection to any pad is intermittent. The cyber attacks keep causing me to lose the link. If someone gets hurt, we might struggle to pull them back here."

"And worse, the stations are just the lasers and a ready room for armored marines to rest it," Brad said. "The tracking stations are still back at the old room."

"Tanya," Bethany said. "Go and find Janice. I need a team of at least six concubines. Make sure they are prepared to have to remove acid soaked armor. The replicators can make some acid resistant cloth. Tell Tina that I need as many towels from that cloth as she can carry. Have her request that they be extra thick."

"On it," Janice said.

"What about me?" Lindsay asked. "Or am I just here for entertainment? We all know I'm just a dumb blonde." She giggled mindlessly.

"You'll be here for triage," Bethany replied. "Move the gurney so that the doorway is clear. Meiko, will you really be fine?"

"Yes," I snapped. Just then, another serious attack on the system started. This time, they tried to overload my system by sending multiple requests to open the pad. Each one had a different priority code and the system began to release the locks keeping the pad powered down. I started a frantic race to deny each request before the system's automatic receipt protocols activated the pad.

The rest of the world faded away for me. I was able to stop the overload, but the other party then reversed their tactic and tried to entice the pad open using a remote draw. We fought for control of the pad. I forced them out again only to see them try to activate a test protocol which would have taken my console completely offline.

Squashing the test protocol took a half hour, during which the other party kept trying to crack the password I used. Their antics there finally allowed me to eject them from the server and I took a deep breath when, for the moment, the console showed all green.

As I leaned back, a hand holding a cup appeared to my left. "Here," a little girl's voice called out.

I turned to look and found Margaux, Yvette's young daughter, standing there. "Thanks," I responded as I took the cup.

"Are we safe?" the girl asked. I tried to remember her. She had visited the pod once when Yvette brought all her household for a visit, but had hid in the shadows back then. Now the girl, who looked eight years old, put her arms around my waist and shivered.

"I've kicked the other guy out for now," I said. "But he could try again."

I took a sip of the drink. It proved to be water. After the first sip, I realized that the exertion of fighting for control of the teleport pad had made me extremely thirsty and I drained the cup.

Margaux took the cup back once I had drained it. "Mom is stuck with your guy and Brad. The loud angry voice is demanding something."

I nodded. "What about everyone else?" I asked. I looked around and discovered that the teleport room was empty.

"There was a problem at the main doors," Margaux said. "Somehow the second door was forced open. James had everyone who could hold a weapon move to defend our last door. They are standing down now though. The marines retreated after the AI threatened to let the air out of the space between two of the doors."

"That couldn't have gone over well," I muttered. "Can you get me more to drink?"

"Water?" Margaux asked as she turned away from the console.

"Yes, with ice if you can," I replied. Just then, lights on the console started flashing, indicating that another assault was beginning. The attacker appeared to have resumed using the emergency protocols and I had to concentrate on defending the colony.