Delphi League (Delphi in Space Book 10) Read online

  Delphi League

  Delphi in Space

  Book Ten

  Bob Blanton

  Delphi Publishing

  Copyright © 2021 Robert D. Blanton

  Cover by Momir Borocki

  [email protected]

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America First Printing, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  https://www.facebook.com/StarshipSakira/

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 Where Do They Come From?

  Chapter 2 Finding Normal

  Chapter 3 Can We Be Friends?

  Chapter 4 Board Meeting – August 1st

  Chapter 5 Town Hall Meeting

  Chapter 6 Jump Gates

  Chapter 7 Picky, Picky

  Chapter 8 Preparing for Guests

  Chapter 9 Welcome to Delphi Station

  Chapter 10 Catching Up

  Chapter 11 Board Meeting – Sept 5th

  Chapter 12 Tres Amigas

  Chapter 13 A Ride Home

  Chapter 14 We Have a Problem

  Chapter 15 Some Help Please?

  Chapter 16 The Galaxy Keeps Spinning

  Chapter 17 Delphi League

  Chapter 18 Omega Has Risen

  Chapter 19 The End Game

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Where Do They Come From?

  “Ma’am, there are Paraxeans in some of these stasis pods,” Major Prescott reported. He’d just entered the Fazullan ship they had forced to surrender in the battle for Artemis, Earth’s first colony planet. The Fazullan ship had been heading to Artemis for years, and when the Delphineans had contacted them to inform them that the system was occupied, the Fazullans had tried to destroy the colony. It had been two weeks since the battle; they had to wait for the Fazullan starship to decelerate enough that the ship could be boarded. Now that they were finally aboard the ship, they had discovered the unimaginable, their allies, the Paraxeans were being held in stasis chambers.

  “Hold on, Major. Admiral?” Captain Fitzgerald prompted Blake.

  “Get a doctor over there and wake up a Paraxean or two,” Blake ordered. “Call us when they’re able to talk.”

  “Yes, sir,” Major Prescott replied.

  The ship’s doctor was summoned and suited up. They didn’t yet know whether the Fazullan ship had pathogens that might be harmful to humans, so they were wearing full spacesuits.

  “Paraxeans?” Catie asked her Uncle Blake. “How?”

  “Who knows?” Blake replied. “Kind of a long way. But the Paraxeans have three colonies.”

  “Still hard to believe. Their closest colony is over 300 light-years from Artemis,” Liz added.

  “Well, we’ll know more soon. I’m going to have breakfast while we wait,” Blake said.

  “Catie, what do you think?” Liz asked. Liz was one of the inner circle of MacKenzie Discoveries, one of the original founders of Delphi City, and Catie’s best friend and business partner.

  “I don’t want to start spinning up theories until we know more. It’d just give me a headache.”

  “Okay, I’ll just make up my own theories and ask you about them,” Liz said.

  “Go ahead. I’m going to join Uncle Blake for breakfast.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The strategy team reconvened after Major Prescott had awakened two Paraxeans.

  “Sir, based on our interview of the Paraxeans, I’m confident that they are from the same colony mission that the Paraxeans at Mangkatar were on.”

  “I concur,” ADI said. ADI was the Digital Intelligence that came with the starship that Marc, Blake’s brother and monarch of Delphi, had found years ago.

  “That is incredible,” Blake said.

  “The older Paraxean was actually part of the mission; he was a child at the time, but clearly remembers the name of the ship he was on. It matches the name we have from the Paraxeans,” Major Prescott said.

  “And the other one?”

  “He was born since then. And sir, they’re slaves.”

  “Slaves!”

  “What a mess,” Blake said. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir. There are two other alien species in stasis. We haven’t brought any of them out.”

  “Let’s wait on that until we have the ship where we want it,” Marc said.

  “Where do you want it?”

  “I’d like to know more first,” Marc said. “How did the Paraxeans wind up on that ship?”

  “Artemis is over 200 light-years from the system where the Paraxeans were attacked so how could they be the same Paraxeans?” Liz asked.

  Catie had brought up a star map and was studying it, oblivious to the continued conversation. After a bit, Marc pinged her. “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, I’m looking for a quaternary star system between Artemis and where the Fazullans attacked the Paraxeans. Unfortunately, there seem to be six of them.”

  “Why a quaternary star system?” Liz asked.

  “A natural wormhole, maybe,” Catie replied.

  “Are you serious?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense. I’m looking at all the star systems between Artemis and the location where the Paraxean colony mission was attacked.”

  “What do you get when you backtrack the Fazullans’ course?” Blake asked.

  “It doesn’t lead to one of the quaternary systems; besides they’re all too far. But it does lead to this system, which is almost in a direct line with that quaternary system. And that system is also approximately in a straight line to the system where the Paraxeans were attacked.” The stars she had pointed out formed a very obtuse triangle.

  “Can a single wormhole actually extend over 200 light-years?” Liz asked.

  “It would only be half of that if the source of the wormhole were in the middle,” Catie said.

  “You mean they can control it?”

  “Seems unlikely, but it might move about on its own. It’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense,” Catie said. “I need to talk with Dr. McDowell.”

  “Then get after it,” Blake said. “We need to figure this thing out.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Marc, have you decided what you want to do with the Fazullans and their ship?” Blake asked.

  “We need to send them to Earth; we don’t have the resources here to figure all this out,” Marc answered.

  “Do you think that’s wise?” Samantha asked. “Foxes and henhouses.” Samantha was Marc’s wife and Delphi’s interstellar ambassador.

  “We can send them to Gemini Station in the asteroid belt. That will provide a platform for everyone to work from while they study the ship. It’s also close enough so our scientists and the Paraxeans still on Earth can run out there when they need to, but far enough away that Earth won’t get too nervous,” Marc said.

  “Do you think we can trust the Fazullans to fly it there?” Blake asked.

  “Leave Major Prescott and his security team on it to make sure. You’ve seemed to have convinced Captain Lantaq that it is in his best interest to follow your orders.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet them at the fringe with the Roebuck. I think we’ll station the Enterprise right next to them until we get everyone off that ship.”

  “Okay, we’ll reconvene in two weeks when it gets there. Then we can do a detailed sur
vey of the ship and figure out what’s up with the other aliens,” Marc said.

  “We should have Major Prescott wake up a few of each so we can get the language thing figured out while they're traveling,” Catie suggested.

  “Good idea. Do it.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Dr. McDowell,” Catie announced herself as she entered his lab. “. . . Dr. McDowell!”

  “Oh, hi, Catie.”

  “I’ve got some interesting data I want to review with you.”

  “Sure.”

  Catie put the problem up on Dr. McDowell’s display. She had taken the gravity estimates for the quad star system and put them into the equation format that they used for the wormholes.

  “Interesting,” Dr. McDowell said as he studied the equations. “Why do you have this variable cycling?”

  “That’s what I’m asking about. What would that do?”

  Dr. McDowell had pointed to the part of the equation that represented the binary star that made up two of the four stars in the quad star system.

  “Well, it would make your wormhole unstable.”

  “All the time?”

  “No, I guess not. Let’s see.” Dr. McDowell drew a graph to represent the equation. “See the rate of change is slow here, so the wormhole would be stable until here. Then it would collapse, or at least start jumping. When the energy gets to here,” he pointed at the next slow-changing section of the graph, “I guess it would open a stable wormhole again. But the vector sum would be different. I would suspect that it would jump to a different star system.”

  “How many different star systems would it jump to?” Catie asked.

  “I think just two . . . no, maybe three. It depends on how stable the other two drives are. How did Ajda make gravity drives so big?”

  “They’re not gravity drives, they’re stars.”

  “Oh, and this is a binary star?”

  “Yes, that equation represents their orbit around each other.”

  “What about the orbits of the other stars?”

  “They’re in a thousand-year orbit, so I’ve ignored that part of the equation.”

  “Well, we should add it in, it might be important.”

  “Sure, I’ll have ADI send you all the data. I just wanted to confirm that that system would open a natural wormhole.”

  “It would, or at least that’s what the math says. It would be a big one, and could span well over one hundred light-years to the other side.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Catie said. “Okay, I’ll leave you to work on it. Let me know if you come up with anything interesting.”

  Dr. McDowell was already playing with the equations, lost in his own thoughts. Catie just shrugged and left.

  Chapter 2

  Finding Normal

  “Hey, Kal, it’s been a while,” Catie said as she met Kal at Delphi City’s Central Park; she’d flown down to the city the day before. Kal and Catie were meeting to practice Aikido, and Kal had wanted to do it in the park.

  Kal waved to Morgan and her two assistants, then turned his attention to Catie.

  “Sorry I missed your graduation,” Kal said as they began circling.

  “That’s okay, I heard you were out of town.”

  Catie grabbed Kal’s arm and dug her fingernails in.

  “Ow! When did you start growing your fingernails long?!”

  “Since I turned fourteen, where have you been?”

  “Not getting clawed by you. Now stop a minute.”

  Catie relaxed as Kal walked over still rubbing his forearm where she’d gouged him.

  “You should have gone for this pressure point,” Kal said pointing to a spot next to Catie’s elbow.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot about it.”

  Kal reached over and pressed his finger on it. “If you’d gotten to it, you could have grabbed my wrist and taken control.”

  “Ow! Ow! Sorry about clawing you!” Catie hollered as Kal twisted her arm, forcing her to the ground. “And I won’t forget that pressure point.”

  “Good,” Kal said, releasing Catie and they started circling again.

  “How did it go in Mexico?”

  “Pretty good. The team infiltrated the town and were ready when the Mexican army showed up. They rolled up the cartel guys pretty fast,” Kal said as he made a move to push Catie over. She countered it and they continued to circle.

  “Nobody noticed all the new people in town?” Catie asked as she tried to use the distraction to slide in under Kal’s guard.

  Kal brushed her aside before answering. “Apparently if they’re women and wear scanty clothes, people make assumptions and ignore them.”

  “That’ll teach them. How are you and Sandra doing?”

  “No chance,” Kal said as Catie made a move. “Sandra and I are doing fine. She’s really impressed with the horse park.”

  “Are you living together?”

  “You know we are,” Kal said as he countered Catie’s move. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  “Okay, is the sex good?”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Barry walked into the Shack, a well-known barbecue joint in Jacksonville, North Carolina. It was just outside of Camp Lejeune, where Barry had lived before he had gone to Afghanistan and after he’d come home. Barry had arrived early to make sure he got a table, by noon the place would be hopping.

  “May I take your order?” the waitress asked, giving Barry a smile. She was cute, Barry figured eighteen to twenty.

  “Just some sweet tea for now, I’m meeting someone at noon, and wanted to be sure we had a table.”

  The waitress frowned, “The boss doesn’t abide people just sitting at a table.”

  Barry laid a twenty on the table. “You just do what you have to so I can stay here and meet my friend.”

  The waitress picked up the twenty and smiled. “I’ll be right back with your tea.”

  Barry’s stomach growled at him. “That barbecue sure smells good,” he thought.

  Barry sipped his tea and waited; he sure hoped that Raelyn showed up, but he couldn’t blame her if she didn’t. “Come on!” He kept his eye on the door so he wouldn’t miss her.

  “There she is,” Barry thought as a young woman entered the diner. She was tall and beautiful, or at least to Barry she was. She paused at the door and looked around the tables. Her eyes passed right over Barry. He waved, and she turned back to him. She gave him a puzzled look but walked over to the table.

  “Is that you, Barry?”

  “Yep, it sure is,” Barry replied.

  “But you look different and you’ve got legs. You said they couldn’t give you no artificial legs on account of how you were injured.”

  Barry slapped his legs, “These babies are real!”

  “Real? How?”

  “Haven’t you heard about Delphi City?”

  “I saw something on the news about it, but I didn’t believe it.”

  “Well, it’s all true. They grew me new legs and fixed me right up.”

  “I’ll say. You look better than I remember.”

  “Yep, that’s because they fixed my nose. You remember I broke it playing basketball.”

  “Oh, that must be it.”

  “Come on, sit down. Do you know what you want to order, or do you want to look at the menu?”

  “We always ordered the same thing when we came here. That’ll do for today,” Raelyn said.

  Barry motioned to the waitress. “We’ll have a platter of baby back ribs, an order of coleslaw, and some fries.”

  “And to drink?”

  “Sweet tea,” Raelyn said.

  “Coming right up.”

  “So, how have you and the kids been?” Barry asked.

  “We’ve been okay. At first, your disability check was coming in and that kept us going. I guess your new legs explains why it quit coming.”

  “But I sent money,” Barry said.

  “I figured it was you, I just started seeing deposits from the Ba
nk of New Zealand saying spousal allotment. I wondered what you were doing in New Zealand.”

  “I was in Delphi City; it used to be part of The Cook Islands, and they’re kind of part of New Zealand,” Barry explained. “Are you still taking classes at the college?”

  “NO! I don’t have time for that. I’ve got a job and I’m raising two kids on my own.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m better now. I can give you more money, whatever you need.”

  “What I needed was my husband, what I got was some jumped-up junkie. So, did they cure you of that when they gave you them new legs?”

  “Yes, I’m all good. The doctor fixed all my problems up.” Barry clapped his hands making a loud smack. “See, no jumping around now. They took care of that PTSD and the drug thing.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m in the Delphi Marines,” Barry said.

  “Figures, all you seem to know is how to fight.”

  “I’m good at it,” Barry said. “I’m a staff sergeant now. I’m making good money and I’m in charge of a platoon. We just finished up an op in Mexico.”

  “You were part of that? Damn, that was on the news. Some serious shit went down.”

  “Yep, that was my team. We took down a cartel guy in Guatemala last year, then we were in Ukraine, and we just finished up with that cartel thing in Mexico. My boss said he might even make me an officer.”

  “Now, that I don’t believe. If they knew half the stuff you said about them officers, they wouldn’t even let you be in the Marines.”

  Barry laughed. “Get this, the big boss is Kal, you remember him.”

  “Yeah, we had him over a few times before you shipped out.”

  “Right, well he’s the general in charge of all of Delphi’s Marines.”

  “Really, Kal’s an officer; and a general?!”

  “Here’s your food,” the waitress said as she set a tray down on their table. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “We will,” Barry said. Then he waited until she was out of earshot. “I wanted to talk to you about the kids.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Raelyn said.

  “I wanted to see you, too,” Barry defended himself. “But I haven’t seen my kids for almost four years.”