“Increasing
power,” said Conner, looking back at her leader to see if he might change his
mind. “At full power.”
“Run through
different frequencies,” order Bala.
It’s like those constructs on the
planet. We haven’t been able to touch them with anything we have. But they
also didn’t react to us at all while we were trying to get samples.
The holo died,
and Bala gave Conner a questioning look.
“We’re not
getting any signal from the probe, sir,” she said, checking all of her links,
sending new commands to the probe. “Nothing. If I had to guess, the probe is
no longer intact. It warned us, we ignored it, and it took action.”
“Send in the
other probe,” said Bala after a moment’s thought.
“You sure you
want to do that, sir?”
“Do it. We’ll
just observe this time around, and see if it will let us stay if we mind our
manners.”
Conner launched
the second probe, and they watched as it went through the entire approach
process and disappeared into the object. And then the signal died.
“I would say
that we are no longer welcome, sir,” she told the Engineer.
Bala cursed
under his breath and stared at the large object, whose purpose he was no closer
to figuring out than when he first saw it. “Gather as much information as you
can on passives for the next twenty minutes, then take us back to the
Lewis
.”
“Only passives,
sir?”
“I don’t want to
piss it off anymore. I may be impatient at times, but my momma didn’t raise an
idiot.”
Chapter Six
Sometimes we find things in our
explorations that make us sit up and think. We believe we’re the big dogs in
space, but sometimes something comes along to prove us wrong.
Captain Stafford Singh,
Exploration Command.
SEPTEMBER 5
TH
, 1000.
D-304.
So, what’s
the connection between those big constructs in orbit around
Big Bastard
and the things on the planet
, thought Captain Albright. She knew there had
to be one. Otherwise, it would be the most unlikely coincidence in the history
of space exploration. Both were large, both seemed to be all but
indestructible, and the same number of objects occupied both locations.
And
we don’t have a clue as to what they do.
She pushed that
thought away, something that she wanted to spend more time on, to work on a
subject that was not close to her heart.
Dealing with these damned
natives. I almost wish we could just boost out of here and leave them to their
own devices
. But that was not an option. Her directives were clear. The
primary purpose of the command was to explore, to discover, to advance science,
to advance the Empire. But running a strong second was the directive of to
help other alien races in need. And one about to be wiped out by a nearby
supernova was definitely one in need.
Just their
bad luck that their primary got caught up in the gravity of the blue giant five
thousand years ago.
Her historians had been looking over the records of
the Klassekians. The blue star had appeared in the sky about five thousand
years before, when the first civilizations on the planet had started on the
road of astronomical observation. The blue approached and swung the primary
into a far orbit of between six and eight light months. Not enough to endanger
the primary in the short term, but not allowing it to escape either. It was just
their fate to be pulled along behind a ticking time bomb.
And these
damned fools just won’t cooperate, and I don’t have enough people to do
everything I need to do to start their evacuation.
She looked at a report
on her holo from her com section, detailing the increase in broadcasts calling
for the eviction of the humans. Rumors abounded that the Imperials were here
to kidnap their people, to use them for some unknown project involving
dangerous labor, or for biological experiments. Hysterical stuff.
“Ma’am,” came
the call over the com. “We’re picking up hyper translations from VII down to
VI. Two objects in the eight million ton range, and three much smaller.”
“Resonances?”
“They’re ours,
ma’am. No doubt about it. ETA to normal space, three and a half hours.”
After a moment’s
thought the Captain switched the link to her com officer
“OK,” said
Albright. “I’m going to compose a message for whomever is in charge of that
force. I want it sent out on grav pulse as soon as possible. Then send all of
my logs to them timed to get there as soon after they translate down as
possible.”
Maybe once
they know what we have here, we’ll get some more aid.
Enough to get the
majority of the population of this world to safety? Maybe, but if not, enough
aid to get a significant number of them away.
* * *
Five objects
erupted from hyperspace less than a light minute outside of the barrier around
the star. All were coasting in at point two c, the maximum velocity they were
capable of translating to and from hyperspace. Three of the vessels, two
battle cruisers and a destroyer, started accelerating as soon as they were in
normal space, over five hundred gravities, set on a least time arrival at the
inhabited planet. The two smallest vessels, a pair of couriers, put on six
hundred gravities deceleration, obviously planning on coming to a stop, then
retreating back beyond the barrier, where they would be ready to haul a message
from the force commander back to base.
Minutes after
the ships left hyper the grav pulse message arrived. Gravitons, unlike any
other form of radiation, traveled in all dimensions of space, normal, hyper and
sub, simultaneously. They made their presence known to ships that could detect
them in hyper VIII over a hundred thousand times faster than light speed
signals in normal space. Unfortunately, grav pulse was an exceedingly slow way
to transmit information. The pulses were a code, much like old style Morse,
and it took over a second for the transmitter to generate each note of the signal.
The long paragraph that Albright had ordered sent took almost eight minutes.
Minutes later the first packet of the light speed transmission from the light
cruiser
Clark
arrived, picked up by the com of both alert battle
cruisers. It was a burst transmission, several hundred gigabytes per second,
including high definition three dimensional images. It still took over a half
an hour for all of the reports to be transmitted.
Moments after
the last of the report arrived, a signal was sent to one of the couriers, which
was still furiously decelerating prior to heading back out. Within a half an
hour the couriers were at a dead stop, then accelerating back out. Thirty
minutes later one of the couriers was translating back into hyper, starting the
long voyage back to the nearest Exploration Command base.
“We’re receiving
a grav pulse transmission from the flagship, ma’am,” said the Com Officer,
turning to look at the Captain.
Albright was
sitting in her bridge chair, looking at the central holo tank, configured to a
tactical representation of the system.
Clark
sat in a close orbit about
the planet,
Lewis
, now back in the system,
in a much further
orbit, while the two battle cruisers and the destroyer were accelerating
inward.
“They identify
themselves as battle cruiser division 1430,
HIMS Boudeuse
and
HIMS
Challenger
, accompanied by DD
Argonaut,”
reported the Com Officer.
“Rear Admiral Nguyen Van Hung commanding.”
A rear
admiral
, thought the Captain, bringing up the record of the flag officer on
her repeater screen. Admiral Nguyen’s face looked out of the screen, of
obvious Asian genealogy, by the name Vietnamese. She had never worked with the
Admiral before, and was somewhat surprised that a commodore or senior captain
wasn’t commanding. Which meant that someone at the base took the situation
very seriously, even without knowing about the singular abilities of the
sophonts.
“Light speed
transmission to follow,” continued the Com Officer.
Albright looked
over the Admiral’s record, noting that he had degrees in both biology and
chemistry, and quite the record as an explorer. Four first contact situations,
and commendations from the Emperor himself, which had been Augustine at the
time, for his skills as a diplomat. It looked like they had lucked out with
this flag officer being assigned to this mission.
It took several
hours for that light speed message to arrive, and Albright found herself
looking at the now animated face of the Exploration Command Rear Admiral.
“I’ve looked
over your reports,” said Nguyen. “I think we really have something here. I
would like to meet with you on
Boudeuse
as soon as we get into orbit.
Nguyen out.”
“Not really one
for words, is he?” asked Sekumbe, the Exec, from the compound down in Tsarzor,
where he had received a copy of the transmission.
“I’m sure he
wants to have a conversation that doesn’t involve long periods of silence,”
said Albright with a grin. “I for one am very glad to see him. And all of
those Spacers and Marines with him.”
“Me too,”
admitted the Exec. “I kinda hate having to send out research teams without
enough security. And forget about our people leaving the compound in Honish,
or any of those flyspeck nations that border them. Damned fanatics.”
Albright
nodded. There had been scores of incidents since the decapitation of her
ensign. None of her people had been killed in any of the attacks, though there
had been some serious injuries that required tanking the crew people. And
there had been significant equipment damage.
I’m surprised they could find
ways to hurt our stuff at their tech level,
she thought.
But I guess it
doesn’t take much more than ingenuity to make effective explosive devices.
“I wonder how
those fanatics in Honish are going to react when they see those battle cruisers
enter orbit?” asked Sekumbe.
“I would give
just about anything to see his face when that happens, said the Captain with a
smile, thinking of the Premier.
* * *
What have the
devils brought to our world now
? thought Zzarr, looking at the viewer that
showed the massive ship in orbit around his world.
It is almost
incomprehensible that they could put something that large into space.
Unlike most of
his kind, Zzarr did not have the wisdom of his siblings to chime in. He had
come to power partially through the elimination of those brothers. He was sure
that whatever he planned was only in his mind. What others knew of his
thoughts was restricted to what he told them.
There must be
thousands on each of those things, and now we will have thousands of the aliens
on our sacred soil. This must not be.
But there was really nothing he
could do to them up there in orbit. His nation had expended all of its ICBMs
on the strike that the smaller alien ship had thwarted. He still had nukes,
but no way to get them into orbit.
But once they are on the ground, that’s
another matter.
He would make sure that they took none of his people away
from their fate, against the wishes of Hrrottha. And it was also the God’s
wish that the infidels of Tsarzor, and all the other nonbelievers, suffer their
fate as well. Hrrottha had a place in hell waiting for them, and he did not
want the God to be disappointed.
“Summon my
military commanders,” he said into the intercom after he had pushed the
switch.
We have much to discuss.
He wasn’t sure that his military
could stand up to the aliens in a fight, but his people were past masters if
hidden warfare, such as they trained other peoples in to resist the
Tsarzorians. He was sure he could hurt them. Maybe even enough to make them
leave this world, and leave the fate of its people in the hands of God.
* * *
“
William
Clark
arriving,” announced the Officer of the Day, the officer charged with
the scheduling of departures and arrivals from the battle cruiser
Boudeuse.
“Permission to
come aboard, sir?” asked Captain Mandy Albright, rendering a hand salute.
“Permission
granted, ma’am,” replied the OOD, returning the salute.
Mandy turned and
saluted the banner of the ship that was hanging on the wall, then did a slow
turn to look at the boat bay, one of four on the vessel, each capable of
hangaring more ships than both of the light cruisers combined under her
command. A half dozen assault shuttles sat in their cradles, along with ten
smaller general purpose craft. Halfway through the turn she saw the large
hatchway her shuttle had passed through, seemingly open to space. The slight
shimmer of the cold plasma, held in place by a strong electromag field, kept
the air enclosed in the compartment. When flight operations were suspended the
armored hatch would be closed, giving the compartment almost as much protection
as the hull afforded the rest of the ship.
“Captain
Albright,” said a tall, slender man wearing the insignia of a captain as well,
bright teeth shining out of an ebony face. “I’m Captain Joshua Jackson,
Admiral Nguyen’s flag captain. Welcome aboard the
Boudeuse.”
“Thank you,
sir,” replied Mandy, holding out her hand. Technically, she was of equal rank
with the other captain, but he commanded a capital ship, and she only a
cruiser. “Let me introduce my executive officer, Commander Nord Sekumbe. And
this is my Marine commander, Lt. J’rrantar.”
Jackson shook
hands with the other officers, looking up at the Phlistaran Marine as he
clasped that being’s great paw.
“First time
aboard a battle cruiser, Captain Albright?” asked the other Captain, obviously
in reference to her star struck appearance while she had surveyed the hangar.
“I served aboard
the
Golden Hind
as tactical officer,” said Mandy, shaking her head. “I
had just forgotten how, big, everything was.”
Jackson laughed,
then gestured toward the hatch leading inwards. “The Admiral is waiting for
you in the flag conference room. If you would follow me.”
With high speed
lifts it was not a long trip, even if they did traverse almost a kilometer
horizontal, and several hundred meters vertical to get there. The doors to the
conference room slid open as she approached, and she sighted the Admiral
sitting at the head of the table as soon as she entered. Snapping to
attention, she rendered a perfect salute.
“Captain Mandy
Albright, reporting as ordered, sir.”
Nguyen returned
the salute while remaining seated. “At ease, Captain. I really don’t stand on
all the spit and polish BS of the Fleet. Go ahead and take your seats, and my
steward will ask what you want as far as refreshments.
Mandy nodded,
then took the seat that had a blinking cursor over it in her implant generated
overlay. She asked the steward for a coffee and some croissant, then turned
her attention to the Admiral.
“I read as much
of your reports as I could on the way in,” said Nguyen, looking over at another
of his officers, a statuesque redhead. “Commander Bergland here, my staff
intelligence officer, also read some other sections, and has advised me on her
impressions. Commander.”