by Luke Norris
“Shielding and strength. I don’t want that abomination to be able to touch me!”
The image of the combat suit altered to become more robust and clunky looking.
“What losses in speed will I incur?” Li asked, examining the heavier looking suit.
“Twenty percent loss in speed. While boosting you will still be able to double the speed of your body’s natural metabolic rate. But, you will notice significant lag.”
“Acceptable,” she confirmed. Li had been on enough planet-runs during driver deployment and never sacrificed any attribute for speed. But then again, she never had to consider the possibility of having to deal with drivers from her own ship. “Why does the helmet look so hideous?” the green mask was bulky and alien looking.
“It has shock resistance,” the computer explained. “I have repurposed one of the crew mining suits for you.”
“Mmm,” Li grunted. It would work she supposed. The bulbous alien looking suit would certainly scare the kids. As long as it could take a blow from that driver, Arif, but hopefully would never come to that. “It’ll be fine,” she said, then called to the lieutenant who was deep in conversation on the other side of the bridge.
“Captain?” Lieutenant Ran strode to Li where she stood by the central projection table. Ran was a robust woman. Her square face was even but not pretty. She’d chosen not to remove a facial scar from a recent planet-run. Some of the crew preferred to keep the scars the received on particularly hot runs. It was Silly, but it somehow suited Ran’s face, giving it a seasoned, even wizened cast. “I will have all available craft ready for Seth, minus two emergency vessels for the crew. This will still not be enough to transport all drivers in one deployment.”
“How many exactly?”
“Each craft has twenty driver pods,” Ran said, quickly calculating. “So, including Medom’s burnt out vehicle, eighty drivers.” Ran waited for Li’s reaction, but none came. “That is an extremely high concentration of drivers to be locally deployed. I’ve never heard of such a thing. What kind of threat are we expecting?”
“I don’t exactly know,” Li said honestly. She nodded to the projection of the green planetside suit rotating slowly. “You joining?”
Ran’s smile pulled at the scar, transforming her face from the even thoughtful lieutenant into something perverted and vicious looking. “You got one of those suits for me?”
This driver or his masters are trying to play psychological games with us. Li considered, gritting her teeth. And, he’s succeeding. My entire crew’s on edge, Seth is challenging my authority. But psychological warfare is my game. If he wants to play my game, so be it!
“And, Lieutenant,” Li addressed Ran. “No cloaking on the landing craft! I want them to see us coming.”
*
Rieka had been stalling for days. The inevitable call she would have to make to Threeti Caplan weighed heavily on her. The minister would be very old now if he even still held that position–it often changed with the long intervals between calls. Terrasians lived in slow-time, but not to the same degree as citizens on the periphery of the empire, the ones that traveled regularly between stars, nomads like Rieka or the E.T.s she hunted.
Did she tell the truth to Caplan? That his long-lost daughter, Verity, had turned. She’d taken up with a pirate crew at a trading post, and died during a planet-raid gone wrong. What good would that truth bring to an old father? How would that hurt a man who’d done so much for the integration of first-stage worlds to the federation? Was omitting some of the details the same as lying? He was an extremely intelligent man, he would read between the lines. Or was the reason she didn’t want to tell him is that the story didn’t sit well with her, her instincts screamed that this couldn’t be true? The Verity she knew or felt like she knew, didn’t fit into this narrative… Bah, the evidence was there. She needed to think.
“Meditation room, Tin!” at her command the walls started fading into the nondescript light turquoise. “No, bring up the forest!” No sooner had the greenery started to appear, than she changed her mind again. “Viewing window, Tin.”
Rieka sat down on the bridge and leaned back in the chair looking up at Laitam above her. Tin had put them in a geosynchronous orbit above a major city. It was morning on the planet, and Laitam’s star peeked around the globe, creating a crescent of light and pushing back the ethereal phosphorescent lights that danced in the mesosphere. Tin told her this city was called Naharain. Her mind was not on the panorama.
She would make the call, and close this chapter of her life. Now was the time. She would not go into details, but if the minister pressed her, she would tell him. No more stalling.
“Tin, I want to make a call…”
“Rieka,” Tin interrupted her. “Five small craft have appeared in the planet’s thermosphere. They are completely unconcealed. No cloaking whatsoever. In fact, I believe they may even be viewed with the naked eye, some two hundred kilometers north of the city.”
“Completely unconcealed?” Rieka walked to the window examining the planet above her. “Why would they be so overt, so brazen?” Trying to find small landing craft on an immense planet was impossible. “Show me, Tin!”
A red circle appeared on the window and slowly shrunk in size. There! Five incandescent glowing points, like a concentrated meteor shower. They were entering the thermosphere. “Such odd behavior, and the location is all the more mystifying. There’s no major city there.” A meandering line indicated a river, and there were small settlements along its bank, but nothing of any significant size that would warrant such a force to be deployed. “What is there, Tin?”
“I only detect small communities.”
“Mmm, this will force our hand nonetheless,” Rieka said, putting her palm on the glass where the E.T. landing craft could be seen glowing brighter now. “I guess this is our target early-trader.”
As soon as she revealed herself, and disabled her own concealment, the other two ships in the system would flee, vanishing quicker than beer in trading post bar.
“Time to work!” She was relieved to have a legitimate reason to postpone the call with Minister Caplan. Somehow, it felt easier for Rieka to put her body on the line by taking her chances with early-traders than to tell an old man the truth.
“Make us known to the others, Tin,” she ordered. “I want to be sure those two E.T.s are leaving the system before we engage.” Typically they would flee at the first glimpse of a patroller, but she wanted to make sure. Especially after what happened on the last planet-run, with early traders teaming up against a protector.
“What if there were two U.W.F. ships in the system?” Rieka said thoughtfully. “Can you tag the ghostship somehow to make it look like there are two patrolers in the system?”
“I will send a pilot drone to the juggernaut,” Tin replied, “have the ship’s cloaking removed and have it beam U.W.F. signals to you and all over the system. They may not recognize it as a patroller, but it will appear as a Terrasian military presence in the system.”
“I want to be on the planet now, Tin,” she said, watching the landing craft flare brighter as the aerodynamic heating caused a white-hot glow to be clearly visible.
The inhabitants living as far away as the city will see those streaking fireballs in the sky, she realized. And most certainly hear the thunder, from the enormous sound energy generated by five large supersonic vessels. They’re putting on a show.
“This is atypical behaviour,” Rieka said thoughtfully. “Initial contact is normally covert. Why like this? Why are they making a grandiose entrance? You’d normally only see this kind of heedless and brazen deployment when multiple E.T.s are vying for dominance.” She tapped the glass. “Are you sure there isn’t driver activity on the planet already?”
“There is no mass population behavior indicating anything other than ordinary commerce and interactions. Data shows there is a ninety-two percent probability early-traders have not engaged their drivers. However, I can confirm th
at the landing craft entering Laitam’s atmosphere at this moment are full of human passengers. These passengers may be drivers.”
“Certain as Terrasian tax!” Rieka said softly. “Scramble comms with those landing craft so they can’t talk to their mothership!”
Had she really reached the planet in time, before the early-traders had wrought destruction with their drivers? All the more reason to get down there and stop whatever was about to happen. Those craft would undoubtedly have drivers on-board.
“How long before the drone reaches the juggernaut?” she asked impatiently.
“Rendezvous in three minutes,” Tin said displaying the drone’s path on the viewing glass. The image was imposed over the backdrop of the planet. But a small red point indicating the drone was nearing another shape, the elongated image of the enormous forsaken early-trader vessel.
The drone was traveling at frightening speed. Without having to account for the limitations of flying with a human, as when she visited, it could undergo acceleration somewhere in the vicinity of one hundred thousand times a standard Terras gravity unit in a vacuum. It closed in on the vessel then disappeared as it entered the compromised hull, where Rieka had also entered.
“Talking with the ship’s computer now,” Tin informed her. “Ship’s cloaking is disarmed, and signals are being transmitted. I am now removing our cloaking and doing the same.”
Rieka waited, tense. She needed confirmation of the other early-traders movements. It was quite likely all three ships would try and depart, including the one that had deployed drivers. It would simply cut its losses and flee.
“Movement detected from the two ships in the outer system,” Tin reported. “They appear to be leaving. The third ship, to whom the landing craft belong has made no movement.”
“Why would they not flee?” Rieka wondered. “Why not simply abandon the driver vessels? Unless there are important crew members aboard.”
Typically the kind of people that ran these early-trader crews would have no compunction in leaving someone behind to save their own asses. Someone important indeed, Rieka thought with grim satisfaction.
“Okay that’s good enough,” said Rieka hurrying to the armory room. “We are going planetside.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
31
STORM COMING
It was the rolling thunder that announced their arrival. Thunder in a morning sky with no storm clouds. Lanos was clearly visible as an orange waxing crescent. To the left of the moon, visible against an azure sky, was the source of the sound. Objects aflame, trailing sooty black smoke, that as they watched puffed out and became a clean white streak. There could be no doubt of their trajectory and terminus.
The men watched with superstitious dread, the alien objects screaming toward them. Oliver had warned them what to expect, but even he felt the terrifying awe at this first glimpse their foe.
“Ponsy’s hammer!” Zeb exclaimed, looking through the telescope at the astral vessels. The ships’ metallic form became visible as they shed their glow, caused by burning atmospheric gases compressed on the underside of the craft. “They are still high in the atmosphere. But they’ll be here in minutes.”
“I’ll take your word on it,” Oliver said, taking the telescope and tracking them across the sky.
Zeb would know, he was a chief engineer in the space program and had been involved in every launch since the program's inception. He was familiar with the reentry of their own comparatively primitive spacecraft falling back to Laitam. Whether they arrived in minutes, or hours ultimately didn’t matter. No more preparation could be done—nothing that would make an iota of difference anyway.
“Why did you decide to stand with me here, Zeb?”
Zeb was a smart man. One of the smartest! The engineer had a slight frame in comparison to the others, mostly ex-zewka cronies, who had stayed back. His face was streaked with the same paint as the others, but the man’s eyes burned unwaveringly.
“Targon told me about you, Oliver,” Zeb said softly. “I don’t know what I think about everything he said about you, but the man is reputable, a trustworthy scientist who should not be dismissed lightly. But more than that, the knowledge you’ve brought to us for the space program is knowledge you’ve seen and been privy to, yet do not really understand yourself. I have been asking myself from where? Where have you seen such things? Certainly nowhere else on Arakan, and I dare say all of Laitam. Then I saw you handle Terrom, after what he did to these men,” he nodded to the strong looking soldiers crouched with them in the drainage canal, one had purple and yellow facial bruising from the encounter with the second-stager. “Sweet Verity, Oliver! But I believe you.”
“Zeb!” Oliver held his gaze. He respected him enough not to cherry coat it. “This is not an enemy we can beat. When I said we will not survive this day, I meant it.” He let in sink in. “But the alternative to not standing now is more terrible than you can imagine. Once they have defeated us here, they will turn to the cities. Naharain will be first. They’ll turn person against person. Pitching family and friends against one another, and take their freedom of thought. We stand here against them! Free! Cognizant! Do you remember the story of my friend, Lego? He was the greatest scientist I’ve ever encountered. His fate is what awaits you should you be captured.”
Zeb squinted at the sky, holding his hand up to block the low morning sun, and watched silently as the alien ships grew larger. Oliver saw the realization dawn on the engineer’s face, how utterly futile this stand would be against a foe so technologically superior as to appear like they used magic.
“Freedom of thought is the most precious thing a man can possess,” Zeb whispered. “I will fight before they take that from me.”
“Have you heard from Shael?” Oliver asked.
“They are already a day along the trail,” Zeb replied. “The wasps are taking them in relays. Along with provisions. But we only have so many wasps, and thousands of residents.”
“As long as they are a safe distance from the grounds.” And Shael is with them. “When those drivers land… they will be merciless.”
Oliver had seen how stealthy these ships could be. When he first caught sight of the vessel on the Tashka bank, he’d almost missed it. This show from the second-stagers, thunder and flaming entry, was a psychological tactic. A stunt. It was probably more difficult and uncomfortable to enter the atmosphere in that manner, but half of Arakan would be plunged into celestial awe and trepidation from this otherworldly phenomenon. Naharainee residents had seen things from the space program, as the rockets’ flight path was occasionally visible as far as the city. But they’d seen nothing like this.
Oliver looked past Zeb at one of the burly men in the trench. The man attempted to appear unruffled, but his knuckles were white, holding his pistol grip.
The wet morning fog had mostly dissipated, but still lingered in the low ditch where they were, and swirled and eddied around the men when they moved. It was hard to tell if they were beads of nervous sweat on Zeb’s face or moisture.
He looked to his right. Lenat and Krin nodded at him solemnly, eyes intense behind their clear goggles. They’re enjoying this. Oliver thought.
“Readiness!” They both intoned in unison.
What does that mean? Oliver wondered, bemused. They always do that. And why is Krin wearing that silly sword? They had the pistols Oliver had given them, and had accepted with a kind of disconcerting reverence. He was endeared to them. Hopefully, the two would stay undercover, and by some miracle escape. That was unlikely, so hopefully their end would be quick.
The camouflage Oliver had insisted they wear would likely offer very little concealment. It was true, drivers used primarily visual confirmation, but they would have command in their earpiece giving pinpoint locations of Oliver’s men. Their ragtag group only consisted of two hundred and forty-six men.
None, bar Oliver, was a match for a driver, and in these approaching ships were sure to be as man
y drivers.
It was not a question of if they would survive, rather how long they would survive. Minutes? Longer? The end was a lost cause, already decided for the inhabitants of Laitam the moment the second-stagers entered this solar system. Oliver had managed somehow to stall the inevitable, but the same fate as Earth was about to befall these people. No, they couldn’t change the outcome, the final result, but with a little luck, they could make it more costly for these pirates.
An energy pulse from the leading ship brought Oliver out of his reverie. It was visible as a sphere of distorted of air, traveling ahead of the small spacecraft like the sinister surface wake of a submerged creature on a calm lake. It happened in an instant, yet it seemed to Oliver to float as if in slow motion towards its target. The realization of the alien missile’s target made Oliver cold.
The gleaming space rocket stood like a monolith surrounded by scaffolding, a shining monument to their achievements in space travel. The subsequent iteration, to the model that stood on the launching pad, would hopefully take a man into orbit. They’d come so far in such a short time. Oliver realized what was about to happen moments before.
“Men!” he screamed at the soldiers he’d positioned close to the launching pad, “Fall back! To the…” a futile gesture. Far too little, far too late.
The mysterious energy wave hit the rocket like the colossal hammer of some mythological titan. The whole structure appeared, in that crystallized instant, to compress and bow out in an impossible fashion for a rigid metallic object. Oliver only had time to pull Zeb flat in the ditch. “Everyone down!” he screamed. Thankfully, the men were so on edge they obeyed at once, diving for cover and pressing their faces on the grass.
The shockwave was followed by a deafening protracted blast. They put their hands over their ears and gritted their teeth as shrapnel and enormous sheets of twisted glowing steel and pieces of fuel tank whizzed overtop.
There was a tremendous amount of liquid oxygen and alcohol in those tanks. And the explosion felt prolonged. The fog that had lurked around them moments earlier seemed to vanish in the warm rush of air. It was replaced with raining black flecks and suffocating smoke. Oliver fitting his clear work goggles into his eyes, and a bandana over his mouth.
