by Jim Laughter
The one thing Credence lost irrefutably was space travel. After the initial shock of the Dark Times, ships to and from the two main ports dwindled to a trickle of free traders. Since this was inadequate to support both ports, they closed and dismantled one to maintain the other. But soon the few ships dwindled to no ships as chaos rolled back the march of civilization. After two decades of no ships sighted or landing, they dismantled the last field and used its equipment and material for more pressing matters.
Thus, Credence closed in on itself. And in the struggle to survive and provide for their own citizens, attitudes changed. Thoughts of Galactic Axia and all it meant slipped further and further into legend and myth. Few were the people who bothered to remember the past since the present consumed all of their energy.
Within a few decades, resources were again in balance and the transportation problems solved. The population grew and the cities flourished. Life was good on Credence. Satisfied with their growth, the planet settled down to a kind of steady contentment in its own little corner of space. They were a peaceful planet with no fear of the outside universe. After all, what enemy would invade them from the stars?
Chapter Two
“Alpha Two Control, Aurora inbound,” Leatha said into the mic as she slowed her ship. Glancing up at the navigation board, she adjusted her heading to match the readouts. A signal registered when she passed the first remote beacon.
As was standard in most systems, Axia and independent alike, there were standard approaches to all of the incorporated and commonwealth star systems. The main approach, which Leatha was entering, led to the primary planet of the system, in this case, Alpha Two. Funneling incoming traffic along one main vector helped reduced confusion for both Control and the ships. Departures could be in almost any direction as long as they avoided the inbound vectors, but incoming traffic had to be controlled.
Inbound was never as crowded as it seemed in theory which proved beneficial in emergencies. More than one ship had come limping in and met up with another inbound ship that rendered aid to the stricken vessel. It was a well-established custom to aid anybody in distress. Space was indifferent and sometimes friends were rare.
“Aurora, Alpha Two Control. What is your status?”
Leatha felt sorry for the poor controller stuck behind some screen in the space station orbiting Alpha Two. It would have surprised her that the controller on duty was feeling sorry for her at that same moment. To him, life traveling deep space alone must be terribly lonely. He much preferred life in a large station or on a planet.
“Twenty-eight days out,” Leatha said. “Just passed the first beacon. Ship and crew nominal.”
Leatha knew the last item was what the controller was waiting to hear. Ships and crews with problems received first priority.
“Noted, Aurora. Situation nominal. Maintain current speed and follow vector Alpha dash two. Contact Docking Master upon entering orbit.”
“Copy that, Alpha Two Control,” Leatha answered back. “One question.”
“Go ahead, Aurora.”
“Recommend a good place to eat there at the station,” Leatha said. “I tried the burger bar near the control tower last time I was here, so I don’t want to do that again. I’m a little tired of replicator food.”
“Try the Crimson Cow on the outer hub. They know how to cook real food,” the controller said with a chuckle.
“Thank you, Alpha Two,” Leatha replied with a laugh. “Care to split a tab?”
“I’ll have to pass on that, Aurora. I just started my shift.”
“Maybe next time. Aurora out.”
Leatha thought of the exchange and smiled. She wasn’t that dead-set on company anyhow. She just thought the voice sounded lonely and wouldn’t mind chatting. It was a quick and easy way to catch up on local gossip. Beside, meals taste better when you have company.
Leatha again glanced at the nav board and noted with satisfaction that she was still ‘on the beam’ as her first flight instructor termed it. Technically speaking, there was no beam to follow. Only a pulsed signal starting at the first beacon kept the incoming ships in line as their nav boards keyed in to it. The Aurora, like so many ships before it, was now part of a long invisible string approaching Alpha Two.
With everything going smoothly, Leatha loosened her straps and tried to work the kinks out of her back. It had been a long, tedious day at the end of a rather unpleasant mission for the young woman. She could almost taste the fresh-cooked meal as her mind reviewed the mission.
It had been a routine assignment to do a quick overview survey of a poorly charted star system. The Axia had plenty of these missions as it endeavored to reconnect itself after the Dark Times. Part of the purpose of ships like the Aurora was to explore these areas, looking for former planets of the Axia that had become lost.
She’d been a refugee from such a planet herself but that was a long time ago and she’d forced the terrible circumstances of her youth from her mind. She only had vague images in her mind of her mother but none of her father. Her only memories went back to an orphan center. And floating in the dark recesses of her mind was the vision of a kindly old man that had saved her from certain death but she could not get a clear picture of him either.
This routine survey assignment had been anything but routine almost from the beginning. First was the navigation. She entered the correct coordinates into her nav console when she first headed out. Arriving at what should have been the outer edge of the star system, she found nothing. This was not that unusual on these kinds of missions but it didn’t bode well in Leatha’s mind.
It had taken most of a week to find the correct star and confirm it with a spectral analysis. Even space shifts over time as solar systems travel around the galaxy. And although the nav logs were set to take this into account, there were enough unknowns in the universe to cause even the best record system to be inaccurate.
Satisfied that she had the correct reference points, Leatha dropped off a beacon from which to tie in her survey. Later the Axia would set up a permanent beacon system if needed. For now, this small unit would provide Leatha with a baseline reference.
Heading toward the inner planets, Leatha ran into her second problem. It was a good thing she was running slow when a gravity wave hit the Aurora, or even the inertia dampeners of the drive might not have prevented her from being thrown around. As it was, the wave pummeled the Aurora violently as it passed over the ship. Leatha had just unbuckled from the control seat to grab some food from the synthesizer when the wave hit. Her feet went out from under her and she landed hard on her backside.
Regaining the control seat, she strapped in hard and then swung the Aurora around to map this disturbance. The bruises on her backside were almost gone by the time she finished the mapping of the wave a few days later. She never did discern the source of the wave but it didn’t happen again. Noting it in the log for more thorough investigation by full survey ships, she again started searching for planets.
She had just passed a gas giant when the first Red-tail ship jumped her. This time she was ready. She’d had that funny feeling all morning she associated with Red-tails. Sure enough, here was one coming at her from behind one of the moons of the gas giant.
With a flick of her wrist, Leatha twisted the Aurora out of the Red-tail’s line of attack. Glancing at the detector screen, she saw it only showed one red trace so she knew there were no other enemy ships waiting nearby. She shoved the throttle bar forward and the Aurora shot past the incoming Red-tail in a move the enemy pilot did not expect.
“Do the unexpected,” Leatha said to herself as she mouthed the words drilled into her by another instructor. She then swung her ship around for a counter-attack. The Red-tail pilot was not quite as fast, so Leatha had him in her sights long before he was ready. Since his was a small ship, she decided to use her main ray instead of a torpedo. She only had a limited supply of torps whereas she could recharge the main ray.
“That should do the trick
,” she said to herself as she squeezed off the shot. Her aim was true and she was close enough to see it vaporize the enemy vessel. She swung the Aurora around in a defensive sweep just in case there was a second hidden ship. It proved to be unnecessary. She was alone in space.
After several minutes of waiting, Leatha determined she was safe from attack. Resetting her sensors, she easily picked up the trail left by the attacking Red-tail. Back-tracing it, she discovered he had hidden his ship in a cavity in an asteroid. That would explain why she hadn’t detected him until he attacked. From here on, she decided to be more vigilant. She tried to find a trace of where the Red-tail had come from before hiding himself. Unfortunately, too much time had elapsed and any residue had dissipated. That troubled the young captain.
Long experience had taught the Axia that unless there was a transit tube nearby, Red-tail ships did not often travel alone. More often than not, they tended to invade an area in mass and did not stray far from their original cluster. That this Red-tail was hiding meant he was expecting something, possibly a Red-tail raiding party. She was certain it hadn’t been expecting her. Until she could prove otherwise, she would have to assume there were more Red-tails out there.
Resuming her exploration, Leatha continued to search for the primary planets of this system. Old records showed there were two inhabited worlds in this system. That usually meant they would have fared well and remained space-borne during the Dark Times.
Records showed that single planets losing connections with other far-flung planets tended to fall back into barbarism. But if there were other planets close, especially in the same system, there was a reason to maintain at least limited space flight. That pattern had proven the norm as the Axia resurveyed areas frequented during those years. Systems with two or more planets were still mostly on par with the Axia and were glad to reconnect. A few multiple systems decided to remain independent, however, but established trade routes with the Axia.
Lone planets didn’t fare well. Many of the current closed planets had been former Axia outposts. Their civilizations had fallen and they were struggling back up. In these cases, the Axia set up Watcher ships with teams to subtly guide them until they could rejoin the galactic community. Attempts to rush the process had proven disastrous to many native planets.
Leatha continued her search. Now that she had evidence of Red-tails, her hopes of finding a flourishing civilization dropped accordingly. Most single planets were ripe pickings to Red-tails if they didn’t have a defensive fleet. Even the best ground-based defenses were never adequate to repel a determined Red-tail attack.
She had read about what happened more often than not when Red-tails would establish rings of ships circling the planet just far enough out to be at the maximum range of the planet’s defenses. They would then tease the defenders and wear down their defenses by constant pressure, launching guided bombs against the ground-based units when they revealed themselves by firing. Eventually, the constant firing would overtax the planetary defenses and either their weapons or their power grids would fail. Then it was only a matter of time before the planet lay bare and defenseless before the red menace. Leatha hoped against hope she wouldn’t find it that way in this case. She’d already seen enough blasted planets to last her a lifetime.
The closer to a planet the Aurora drew, its sensors reached out to their maximum range for any signs of life. Once or twice Leatha thought she detected a signal. The first time it turned out to be an emission from the star refracted by an errant gravity wave.
The second time was more fruitful. She traced it back to a barely operational signal buoy floating in space. It matched in appearance the pre-Dark Times Axia buoys used to guide incoming ships. The hull was battered and scarred from centuries of standing its lonely vigil between planets. That it still managed to emit a feeble signal was nothing short of amazing.
Pressing onward, Leatha continued a standard survey spiral toward the inner planets of the system. As she approached what would be the orbit of the planet just out from the inhabited one, she started running into debris—mostly gravel and rocks but there were occasional readings of refined metal. She carefully traced these down and found burnt and twisted wreckage in every case. She was unable to determine what they had been, only that at one time in its past, someone had refined it.
It was a grim young captain that guided her ship toward where the main planet should be. She had already taken over two weeks to get this far with all the mapping and cataloging, not to mention the lone Red-tail attack. That she had not been attacked since was both a relief and a worry. Any sensible space traveler was happy not to tangle with Red-tails.
It still left unsolved the question of what a Red-tail was doing hiding out here area alone. There was little chance it was a lone scout sent to explore this sector. It wasn’t unheard of but Leatha couldn’t count on it. Red-tails hunt in groups like packs of hungry wolves, never alone unless they get separated.
The third planet from the sun of the system shimmered into view. She immediately noted several rings of debris circling the dark orb. No such rings reflected in the old records. Her sensors on full, Leatha carefully nudged the Aurora closer to the planet. This did not look good.
Approaching the first of the outermost rings, Leatha engaged the Aurora’s spectral sensors. The answer returned immediately—Red-tail metal. Visual examination of the debris by long range optical sensors showed the ring of debris consisted of the remains of hundreds of blasted Red-tail ships. Most were burnt and blown apart and she noted no bodies among the wreckage.
Examination of the inner rings revealed the same story. At least two clusters of Red-tail ships had attacked the planet. She had never seen such a mass of devastation.
The Red-tails must have really wanted this planet.
Lastly, Leatha turned her sensory equipment toward the planet surface. All through her examination, she failed to detect any signals from the surface or surrounding space. Looking through her optical sensors, she saw why. The entire surface was pockmarked from the blasts of orbital bombs. However, not all of these showed the typical blast patterns associated with Red-tail weapons. Closer examination showed evidence of other types of weapons, but these had come later than the Red-tail ones.
What Leatha surmised was that the planet had been attacked in stages. First, the orbital defenses were worn down. Then when the Red-tails finally landed, the humans had fought back, only grudgingly giving ground to the enemy. The Red-tails were made to pay dearly for every advance.
But it made little difference in the end. Eventually, the Red-tails had overcome the efforts of the human defenders. From that point on, it was wonton slaughter. With the planet subdued, the Red-tails would bring in harvesting ships to load up all the humans they could capture. Even the dead were collected for transport back to Hadeous, the Red-tail’s home galaxy.
The images shook Leatha. She’d held herself in control and finished the survey as quick as possible. She then turned back to deep space and left the dead system behind. Although it would take eleven days, she could not wait to get to Alpha Two. But it was on this trip the torturous nightmares began.
∞∞∞
She sat alone, which was just as well. The lounge with its spectacular view of the approach and shipping lanes to the space station had more than its usual number of patrons. Everyone seemed to read the unwritten sign over the young female captain’s head that warned them to stay away. Leatha was unconscious of this, of course, but since she preferred solitude, she didn’t mind it. At least the trooper’s advice had been right. The August Angus certainly knew how to prepare a steak.
Visible through the steel-glass windows were dozens of ships from many different planets coming, going, or docked at the commercial portals of the station. Leatha’s Aurora was docked in a different area on the other side of the station reserved for service ships.
A small crowd of viewers pressed against the windows admiring a new commercial ship docking at an exclusive company po
rtal. A form of space-borne fireworks were being set off out in the clear zone between shipping lanes to celebrate the arrival.
Besides the brilliant bursts of red and green starbursts, patterns of multicolor explosions lit the darkness of space around the station. Onlookers oohed and aahed with each display and Leatha watched while her coffee grew cold. Then the pyrotechnics changed to patterned displays of shapes and designs. Leatha imagined what technical skills were required to produce such designs. She privately nodded her approval. Then a particularly jagged pattern of white brilliance flashed across the empty space and in that moment, everything changed.
Chapter Three
Leatha woke with a start. She stared into the darkened room around her. Her senses told her it was very late in the night from when she last remembered anything in the lounge. They also told her she was not alone. Determining she was in some sort of medical facility, she fought to keep a wave of fear from overwhelming her.
This was not the first time she had experienced a flashback but it was by far the worst. Prior episodes had been brief waking moments; snatches of memory and emotion long buried. She’d dismissed them and fought off their recollection by burying herself in her studies and her work. But over time, they had grown steadily more intrusive. She still managed to keep them from affecting her performance but the difficulty was taxing her strength.
And now tonight. She had let her guard down since she hadn’t had an episode in many weeks. All she could remember was the bright flash of the fireworks. What happened since, she could not recall. Only a sense of fear so strong she could still smell it. Never before had she lost time like this, and deep down inside, it frightened her.
Obviously, someone had discovered her at the lounge and called for help. She suspected she was in the medical facility of the space station. Most likely, the ward area reserved for service personnel.
