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Chapter 5
USS Cherry Barb Approaching Jupiter
“Report!” Commander Frazer barked to the crew as he entered the bridge.
“Sir, we are approaching the coordinates for point alpha. The Zebra Danio should be at their assigned coordinates with their probes already on their way.” Replied Lieutenant Commander Bannon.
“Excellent, what’s the status of our own probe?”
“Primed and ready on your order Sir.”
“Well done Pounds. Launch when the mission timer reaches zero.”
The RX 28 was the latest generation stealth probe. It was a long cylindrical shape roughly the half size of a nuclear missile and covered completely in stealth plating. With the amount of care that went into ensuring it would not be spotted, and its much smaller size it was even more stealthy then the Minnow class stealth ships. Unfortunately, due to the amount of stealth plating on it, the probe didn’t have much in the way of active sensors and instead relied on passive scans and cameras with telescopes to gather data. When it completed its mission, it would open and a small laser communication system would send the information gathered back to a pre programmed location where the Cherry Barb should be waiting.
For this mission the Zebra Danio and the Cherry Barb were at separate points and sending their probes in on preassigned flight paths, the Pearl Gourami was still traveling to its own rallying point where it would launch its own probe. Each of their probes flight paths were set to go a specific distance from the Leviathans make their way clear of the Leviathans and send their information back to their attendant ships using their laser com systems. If a probe was detected it would hopefully allow the crews to get an idea of how close they could get before being detected.
If the probes were undetected each of the ships would then pass the Leviathans themselves and attempt to gather as much information as they could using their more effective sensors.
The crew watched with bated breath as the timer reached zero and their probe smoothly launched from the ship. If all went according to plan, they and their sister ships would be receiving data in several days.
Their ship itself was still running silent and as such they had to be careful, that meant no active scans, no transmissions, and nothing to do but wait. The crew however was selected for being psychologically able to withstand to long stretches of doing nothing but waiting to see if they would be found and killed so they were able to focus on their jobs with little in the way of distraction. With the distances travelled by the probe and the precise nature of laser communications it was imperative that the ship that was to receive the message not move from where the laser communicator would be sending it.
If the laser were detected or intercepted it could spoil the location of the probe sending it or the ship receiving it, so the lasers were always very narrow and low powered. Because of how narrow they were it was not uncommon for messages to be lost or never received. A small meteor or dust getting in the way the way of the laser could prevent the message from making to its recipient. Or if the ship drifted a few meters from where it needed to be they might miss the message entirely. Because of the precision needed for this to work the United States Navy had the best laser communications systems out of all the powers.
For three days the crew did their duties and tried to avoid going stir crazy, until Lieutenant Green received the message 40 minutes into her shift three days after launching the probe. “Sir, we have a transmission from the probe. Good signal strength, negligible data loss.” She said looking over the incoming information.
“Right on time, coms send the information to the Rushmore, and then my terminal.”
Scanning the data as quickly as he could Commander Frazer was relieved to see that not only had the Leviathans not reacted to the Cherry Barbs probe, their probe had also not picked up and explosions from any other probe that had been sent out. With the coordinated launches they had also ensured the probes would make their flybys of the moon and Leviathans at similar times making it hopefully easier to see if any probe had been detected and destroyed.
Looking into the data more closely Commander Frazer noticed a few strange things. First one of the Behemoths was missing several extremely large chunks out of its center, the green bubble normally in its middle was missing entirely. It was apparently being disassembled or possibly eaten by two of the Krakens that were hovering around it in the video.
Not only that but the probe was even able to get some pictures of a third Kraken building some large objects in Jupiter’s orbit along with several of the Guppies and the second Behemoth.
“Pounds take a look at this.” Commander Frazer said as he moved the file he was looking at from his own tablet to the main display in the CIC.
“Are they eating one of them?”
“Possibly, I think they’re taking it apart and building something else out of it. These ships could be used for carrying raw resources or the equipment they need when entering a new system.”
“It looks like it’s the materials they need to build whatever these things are.” Commander Bannon said gesturing to several of the structures in orbit over Jupiter.
The picture in question was fairly poor quality. Unfortunately, even the best cameras that could be crammed into the stealth probes were not the best that could be found. And with the distances the probe took pictures at details were not always as clear as people would like.
“Sir?” Said Nate Brown the Cherry Barbs Navigator. “I think your right about the ship being used for raw materials. The probe recorded the Leviathans flight details and the smaller craft are definitely shuttling materials from the Behemoths over to the objects over Jupiter and then traveling back again for more.”
Not a person on the CIC spoke as the crew considered this.
“Alright everyone, our sister ships will be moving into their positions as we speak, however we get the fun job. Mr. Brown, is the course we have plotted still viable? Or have the Leviathans moved to close to it?”
“I’d like to make some changes Sir, our course as it stands now will take us between the Behemoth in the orbit of Europa and whatever it is that’s being built in the orbit of Jupiter, with all of the traffic between the two and we could be spotted by something. I’ve made a few changes that should allow us to get a good view of what’s left of the Behemoth and what’s being built.”
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“Well done Mr. Brown, once our flyby is complete I want us to take a quick look around some of the other moons that are nearby. We are missing a few of the Guppies and one Leviathan. The fleet will want to know where those are, and I mean to be able to tell them.”
“Understood Sir, that won’t be a problem. The probe was able to get within 25 000 kilometers of them without being detected Sir, I assume you would like us to stay a bit further away than that?”
“Indeed Mr. Brown, I think at least 75 000 Kilometers distance. Ops, will you have any problems getting data at that distance?”
“No, Sir, our equipment can be used at that distance.”
“Excellent. What is our estimated travel time Mr. Brown?”
“It should be 16 hours until we are at our closest point to the Behemoth, and 20 hours until we are at our closest point to the structures.”
“Excellent, Ms. Green, send another status update to the Fleet …”
“Already done Sir.”
“Then helm take us out.”
And with that the Cherry Barb engaged its gravity drives. Accelerating extremely slower than their main fusion drives, the gravity drives were completely undetectable to any sensor’s humanity possessed and were what made stealth ships viable.
Once again, they began accelerating towards the Leviathans. As soon as the Cherry Barb was up to speed and pointing at a course that would take them both near the Behemoth orbiting Europa and the structures being built near Jupiter and then the Cherry Barb cut her engines and began to coast on momentum.
Drifting towards it’s target the crew were hard at work ensuring there were no electrical discharges, heat on the hull, or even loud noises on their ship. Until they were finally close enough to use their own telescopes and passive sensors to take a closer look at the Leviathans.
By now the Behemoth had been broken into several large chunks each roughly a third of the ships total hull, they had been kept close together and moved into an orbit around Europa.
“Pounds are you seeing this thing?” Commander Frazer said as he pointed at his small tablet which was showing an aerial view of Europa.
On his screen was an object rising out of the ice of Europa. It had a diameter of almost 100 meters and was reaching towards orbit. It looked to be made up of a mottled grey flesh, with thick cables of what looked like muscles running up and down it’s length. Commander Frazer gave it a good look, almost thinking he could see it growing in front of his eyes.
The Behemoth itself was in several large pieces, each one spinning in space. A dozen Guppies were holding part of the Behemoth with their front tentacles slowly arresting its momentum and forcing it to a stop. A Kraken approached the stopped chunk of Behemoth and the crew was treated to the sight of the front of the Kraken opening. Because of the position of the Cherry Barb the crew was not able to see in the Krakens face but they could see dozens of long tentacles extend from it, pierce into the Behemoth and tear a chunk of the creature out, blood, bones and organs poured out of the hole.
The Kraken itself slowly turned around and began accelerating towards Jupiter holding a chunk of the Behemoth in its front tentacles. Whatever the organ was it was the size of a frigate covered in blood and was still pumping like a heart.
The crew of the Cherry Barb sat in stunned silence as the Kraken continued to accelerate away from them towards its next destination, whatever it was building in orbit of Jupiter.
Hours later as they approached Jupiter they could see that the Kraken was leaving its gory prize floating in orbit next to the structures and was already turning back to the Behemoth to make another trip.
As they approached to their closest point to the 2nd Behemoth and the massive objects being built in orbit of Jupiter they were finally able to get a good look at them.
The Behemoth was every bit as massive as they their scans and telescopes had said it would be. At almost 24 kilometers long it dwarfed the 5-kilometer-long Ares Space Station the largest object humans had ever created in space. The Surface of the Behemoth was broken into 3 distinct areas laid out like a target. The outermost ring was made up of hundreds of waving tentacles, some dozens of meters long, others several hundred meters. The ring inside of that one was a smooth mottled grey flesh with small bumps at irregular intervals. The final part of the Behemoth, the inner bullseye was a murky green color that shifted as the Commander watched it. The longer Commander Frazer looked at it the more it looked like something was moving inside of it.
Pulling his gaze away from the monster that was the Behemoth he moved his tablets screen to look at the constructs they were building.
The three structures despite their earlier guesses were not identical. One was a ring almost 10 kilometers across and the other two were long cylinders on either side of it 5 kilometers long, 3 kilometers wide and with a wide-open maw facing towards Jupiter with the now familiar tentacles waving towards Jupiter on a wind that didn’t exist in space. All the structures looked to be made of a white material, possibly bones from the Behemoth itself with long cords of muscles and arteries running up and down their sides.
“We can get a good enough reading on most of the materials they are made up of, I’m seeing carbon making up most of the supports. The other parts are a mix of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and dozens of other elements. Take a look at this, you see what’s actually doing the construction?” Pounds said gesturing at his own tablet.
There were hundreds of what looked like large beetles moving over objects. They were insectoid, if insects could come straight from hell. They were very large probably 15 meters long, with 6 extremely long limbs that had at least 6 joints on them. The joints themselves could bend in any direction which gave Frazer the impression of a half a dozen wiggling worms instead of legs. It’s back bulged out behind it and he noticed that it was standing at a point where the bones were meeting each other, and it appeared to be excreting something onto it, others still were creating what looked to be veins, arteries and even musculature along the bones.
Commander Frazer nodded dumbly at his old friend as he looked at the creature Pounds was pointing at, what really drew Frazer’s attention however was its head. It was extremely round and fat with dozens of eye stalks that moved independently of each other. Some of them focused on the construction some seemingly looking in random directions. After a few moments Frazer noticed some of the creatures walking to the bottom of the structure where they were picked up by a waiting Leviathan and the crawled along one of the tendrils into the maw on the front of the Leviathan. A few minutes later it picked one out of another whole in it and moved it back to the structure where it went back to work.
With the bridge crew able to see the data as well discussion started immediately.
“Is… that thing a creature that controls the leviathans? Or could it be controlled by the Leviathans?”
“I’m not sure, maybe its a drone like in an ant colony? or it could be intelligent.”
“How the hell is it walking in space? What is it made of?”
“Do you think it’s shitting out glue? Or is it creating the supports as it goes?”
At that question the discussion stopped, and all eyes turned to the person who asked the question, Nate Brown.
“What? That’s a good question. If it is creating the bones then it would have to be excreting out carbon as what a liquid? and somehow fusing it into a solid, if it is some kind of bonding agent then what kind? You can’t just glue an object this size together, the amount of force it would have to be able to withstand should rip any bonding agent apart, and how would it keep it’s but cheeks from getting glued shut?”
As everyone stared at him for a few minutes before Commander Frazer finally said, “Well those are two very good questions you’ve asked Mr. Brown, but why don’t we focus on getting as much data as we can? let the people back home will be analysing it. Sensors, how is our resolution?”
“As good as we can manage while on silent running Sir. I am concerned that there is still no sign of one of the Leviathans though.”
“Commander, given our position and the position of the other ships, I have narrowed down where the Leviathan could be to behind these three moons, if not then someone else should have been able to see it now.” Nate Brown said.
“Well done Mr. Brown. Lieutenant Green make sure all of this is ready for the message back to the Rushmore and to Earth.”
“Yes Sir, I am ready to send it back to both on your order.”
“As soon as we are on the far side of Jupiter send off all of the data we have collected. Lieutenant Brown, plot us another course, once we are finished surveying the moons, I want to get closer to those structures, and I want to see everything.”
As the Cherry Barb moved further and further away from the Leviathans and the objects they were building, Commander Frazer felt a stab of fear. The Leviathans had been here for only a few months and they had already started construction on something than anything humanity had even conceived of. Who knows what they would be able to make in a year or even two?
If the task force didn’t succeed here, he didn’t know if they would be able to make a second attempt.