Sidereal Quest

by E Robert Dunn

  Pushing himself up on one elbow, he stared out the front windshield of the drivepit. He blinked at the brightness -- the familiar environs of Base Camp came insight. The Landrover was approaching the aft section of the Pioneer Four; the lowered garage ramp was a welcomed sight. His right hand lifted testing the solid, unyielding surface of the bow console.

  Capel's brow knitted as reality set back into place in his confused mind. He felt sick and closed his eyes until the nausea passed.

  He rolled to the right in an attempt to sit straight in the contour seat that held him as the 'Rover tilted forward and then backward in its trek down the stony embankment and then up the Pod's garage ramp. Pain burned through his leg, and then he remembered!

  The windshield darkened as the transport came to rest inside the Pioneer's maintenance section. The purr of the hyperatomic engine warbled into silence as the auto-drive shut off all propulsion systems.

  Capel groaned as he slouched back into the seat: The crivit encounter at the weather station site, the tentacle assaulting his leg, BeeTee's sacrifice and the 'Rover in which he had taken refuge -- all came rushing back into his mind. At that very instant the starboard exitportal hissed open. The Landrover shivered as someone entered the passenger compartment.

  He groaned again, this time in realization that he apparently had survived the crivit attack and was somehow back at the Pioneer Four. Didn't he touch the Auto-Drive before he blacked out? He tried to remember.

  Ignoring the fiery pain awakened with each twist of his body, his arms groped around him, hands searching for solidity to help him rise to his feet.

  He fumbled and fell back again.

  "Capel! Are you all right?!" Dara said, noticing that Capel was soaking wet and there were streaks of mud and blood on his face and uniform.

  The commander's head twisted around. Dara hovered over him like a tall, statuesque, auburn-haired angel. Her ivory smile moved across her chiseled face lightly dusted with a sprinkle of fading freckles. Her dark eyes flashing an impish sparkle met his.

  "Fine." The word slipped from his lips as though a male in shock had uttered it.

  "MediComp reports you're suffering from venom shock! What happened out there?!" she insisted, slipping a medical kit off her shoulder and kneeling beside Capel. She wiped away the swamp muck that covered the male's face and uniform. As she worked, she went on, "Computer reports you have a casualty! BeeTee is missing from your complement. What happened? Look at you ...”

  Capel continued to stare like a male in a trance. He felt dizzy and an overwhelming sense of vertigo pushed its way up his throat. He tasted sour bile and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Capel's nose was swollen and painful, his right shoulder was badly scarred, bruised, and swollen from what Dara could see through his torn and tattered gold-black uniform. The whole side of his head was covered in dried blood and mud. Both of which were splattered throughout the transport from the exitportal through the vestibule module and into the drivepit.

  Capel began to moan deliriously. "BeeTee, watch out!" he raved. "...crivits. Run...crivits...find the 'Rover...only hope."

  Dara had not the slightest idea what her mate was raving about. "Capel, you're not making any sense to me," she said, her voice holding a soothing quality. "Did you run into something?"

  The silky strands of Dara's present shoulder-length hair swayed gently when she tilted her head to one side as she eyed Capel's wounded leg. Running her hands over his limbs, Dara squeezed the arms and legs briefly. She noticed that the commander's hands had short slashing cuts on both palms, and bruises on the wrists and forearms. She felt a chill but continued to inspect her mate's body. Capel groaned as the doctor brushed her manicured fingers over his lacerated right calf.

  Reaching for her first-aid kit, Dara retracted a medical bioscanner. Its function was similar to a standard biocoder in that in provided readouts on life forms within an area, but it also acted as a diagnostic tool to help determine the physical state of crewmembers or other subjects. Activating the device, she keyed several icons and instantly had detection and analysis on Capel's electromagnetic brain-waves. The scanner's warble changed in pitch and intensity as Dara ranged the concealed ultrasonic imaging sensors over the commander's body; they provided detailed displays of his internal organs and neurological systems. Vital life-sign sensors provided readouts of heartbeat, respiration, circulatory pressure, and so on. Touching the stimulus icons had the bioscanner's small screen clearing to show the level of pain Capel may be experiencing. Simultaneously while the bioscanner was sensing and recording this data for analysis, it provided automatic communication links with the Pioneer Pod's diagnostic computers to help Dara determine the type of treatment required.

  Within moments, Dara discovered that the severity of the laceration was no more than a bad sunburn. The venom level ingested by Capel's system wasn't enough to bring about death, just delirium and a nasty headache; vomiting would occur if immediate medical attention wasn't commenced. The ship's diagnostic computer recommended combination drug therapy to alleviate Capel's discomfort. The specific homeopathic formulas displayed themselves in order of administration on the bioscanner's small screen complete with molecular representations, tincture potencies, and dispensing forms.

  Dara closed the bioscanner and returned it to the medical support kit. Quickly she withdrew an ultrasonic hyposyringe, filled it with an ampoule of 20 cc cantharissiliceane pain suppressant, and placed the slender, hand-held device against the commander's neck and depressed the aerosuspension stream's activation icon. There was a small hiss as the low-viscosity medication was administered through the epidermis.

  Capel's breathing returned to a normal rhythm almost instantly; yet, he still looked unconscious. Discharging the emptied vial into the medical kit, Dara then placed an ampoule of 2 cc kali phosphoricumine into the firing chamber. Once again she placed the muzzle against Capel's neck and delivered the stimulant painlessly through the skin layers into his bloodstream. She then gingerly lifted a scorched flap of Capel's uniform and studied the wound beneath. She extracted a laser scalpel from the support kit and widened the rent in his pants an additional milliretem.

  Perezsire was coming around and grimaced when he glimpsed the wound the crivit's tentacle had left. To him, it looked far nastier than sunburn.

  Expertly, Dara refilled the hyposyringe with an ampoule of an antiseptic with an apis mellifica-base and placed the muzzle of the device just above the wound. Once more the ultrasonic hyposyringe administered a high-pressured, painless insertion of the medicine directly into the bloodstream. There was a high-pitched sound that emitted from the syringe while it emptied the contents of its vial chamber. As the laceration's redness and swelling began to disappear, Dara returned the hyposyringe and produced a self-adhesive pad from the support kit and lightly covered the blotched area.

  The effect of the combined medicine was almost instantaneous, and it showed on Capel's face and in his body language. To be sure that the effect was real and not psychological on the commander's part, Dara had the bioscanner confirm what she witnessed. Satisfied with the therapy's results, the doctor closed the scanner and returned it to its place inside the support kit.

  "All your systems are returning to normal. You should feel the full effect within a node. Now let's see if we can get you on your feet," she said, closing up the medical kit and shouldering its strap.

  "My feet?" Capel made no attempt to hide his doubt when Dara stood and held out a helping hand. "You sure about this?"

  "I want to get you to the Infirmary and have a look at your nose and shoulder." She snapped her fingers and impatiently straightened her arm. "Besides, you will be curious about the series of events that have occurred since you blacked-out. And, I need a report on what happened to BeeTee."

  Capel accepted Dara's hand, her fingers closed around his with surprising strength.

  "I'll pull on three," she said. "One...two...three!"

  With Dara tugging and Capel pu
shing, they managed to get him on his feet with a minimum of groans and curses. He took a tentative step with his right leg, winced as pain flared anew through the calf and thigh, and stood there swaying.

  Dara wrapped an arm around his waist. "Lean on me until you get your legs back."

  Without protest Capel slipped an arm around the doctor's waist. He grimaced and cursed when he placed his weight on the wounded leg. Dara ignored the protest and edged him forward through the drivepit's bulkhead. By the sixth step Capel walked on his own with his auburn-headed doctor standing beside him with open arms to catch him should he falter.

  "A little stiff," he commented after another six steps. "The pain seems to be dulling."

  Slowly, cautiously, with Dara ever ready in case he fell, they managed to make their way between the lockers and storage shelves of the passenger section's entry vestibule from the drivepit, before reaching the unsealed exitportal.

  Directly across from them was the opened lower utility deck hatch. Unaided, Perezsire stepped off the 'Rover's gull-winged door's sill and moved toward and through the hatchway. Dara stopped as she exited, turned, and called, "On-board Computer."

  Along the right-hand side of the exitportal's entry wall a blackened surfaced computer interface glowed. The on-board's mellow voice intoned, "Request."

  "Please have Maintenance robotics unload cargo."

  "Command received and acknowledged," the computer replied.

  Dara stepped away from the hatch and turned confidently, entering the lower utility deck.

  Inside the Infirmary, Moela had already assisted Capel onto the diagnostic biobed. Dara returned the medical support kit to the storage wall, but not before she removed the kit's bioscanner. Approaching her patient, Dara activated the biobed's multi-functional sensor web woven into the compression cushions lining the length of the bed. Instantly the display screens of the folding support platform that Moela had positioned over Capel's torso illuminated. Stepping alongside the support frame, Dara consulted the battery of biofunction sensors; supplementing those provided by the biobed and by the overhead medical equipment array.

  Locating a bioscanner receptacle on the clamshell-fashioned support platform, Dara opened the bio-device she held and placed it inside the slot. The data exchange between the two pieces of hardware was immediate.

  Capel noticed the cabin's CommWall's holosets. They were illuminated by the Tauron scrambled transmission that thus far the galactic translator program of the Main Computer was unable to decode. It left Capel feeling puzzled and vulnerable... what were Tauron mechanicals doing here? Hadn't they been marooned on an uncharted planet? It was all so unnerving!

  "Now what happened to you out there?" Dara insisted as she worked on the commander's shoulder with a hand-held anabolic protolaser. It was a portable wound healer used on minor injuries like Capel's lacerated deltoid area.

  "BeeTee and I were at our last pick-up point when we encountered a crivit nest. We were assaulted, and I managed to escape." Capel's response was curt and direct, and recall was obviously quite painful. "Although if you ask me for details, I'm afraid I don't remember much. Between the storm and the attack..."

  There was a moment in which Dara and Moela exchanged troubled glances and digested what was bluntly presented to them. Was it possible? BeeTee gone? The cybernetic had become so much more than just hardware, almost considered a member of their family. Another lost to this damned world! Dara bitterly thought, turning off the treatment wand she had been using to strengthen Capel's shoulder.

  "How?" the doctor almost whispered moving to look at her patient's bruised and swollen nose, ignoring the fact that Capel appeared visibly upset.

  "Ouch!" Capel complained as Dara re-activated the small, hand-held protolaser and waved it slowly over his nose. As the scratches and redden lacerations faded beneath the protolaser's DNA match synthesization unit's ray, Dara picked up a tissue regenerator and turned it on. Tendrils of pain needled their way throughout his nasal cavity once again. The commander winced in protest.

  "Sorry. I'll just be another macronode..." Dara concentrated on her task at hand. Seeing the swelling in Capel's nose dissipating, she discontinued using the tissue regenerating stimulator. "Now, what happened out there?"

  An outside communication was trying to get through the Tauron chatter. The bell or the tone saved the commander from responding.

  "...Retho calling...trying to negate trans-....am at source with Nic-..." The holoset refused to bring the youth's image up for viewing, and the disembodied voice was broken by interference. "...having difficulty in... but, will cont-... to try to relay infor-...as much as pos-..." The communication roared with static.

  "Trying computer booster override," Moela said as she leaned forward and touched the appropriate control contact point.

  The clipped, soothing voice of the Main Computer said, "Attempting to assist."

  The static dimmed and Retho's image flickered to life on a holoset. His voice was dulled by the background transmission noise; he was going on. "Pioneer Four, do you copy? Nicraan and I have traced new transmission source. We are at site now and are attempting to negate. Our coordinates are..."

  Instantly the audio and visual were cut out, and Retho's report was lost. Moela automatically hit the communication contact point again, and the computer responded, "Attempting to override present communication malfunction." A moment, then, "Negative."

  Moela jabbed the control again and got the computer's "Negative" once again. "Computer! Please verify science analysis on what is jamming our communications?"

  The computer checked its systems, and then reported its readings. "Mechanical probe. Possible sensory or artificially telepathic in nature."

  Moela looked back from the CommWall's Ops panel. "Sensors confirm we are being scanned."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

  The sleekly elongated prominence of the Imperial Strikecruiser Shincarick dominated its Outer Rim position as it glided like some aquatic monstrosity through deep space. Along with its five sister wedge-shaped cruisers, it surveyed the furthermost reaches of known space for Systemite refugees. Its bridge was like all others in the armada, busy and full of activity.

  "I think we've discovered something, Ba’al Sirdar," Sub-sirdar Pacoima-le announced nervously to his superior standing beside him.

  "Report, Sub-sirdar." Ba’al Sirdar Cabbon-le was a supremely confident Tauron who felt relaxed enough with himself and his ability to command not to be tyrannical.

  "We are receiving a broad-band transmission report from an Outer Rim probe droidship's mechanical. It's one of the Rue Saxer's probes, Sire. There is a lot of solar radiation interference, so it is only a fragment, coming from one of the Thilen Group's planetary systems. It's quite unusual."

  "How so?"

  Sub-sirdar Pacoima-le respectively gestured toward a control console next to them. Images of starships, droidships, battleships, and several smaller fighter ships squadrons whirled through simulated space like flies of fire around the Outer Rim. The holographic map of the quadrant showed the locations of all vessels in range and plotted approved approach or departure orbits on a spherical grid. Data holoterminals spewed information on vessels’ sizes and docking or disembarkation requirements, keeping track of anyone reporting impaired control. A scattering of red danger zones marked debris clouds of wrecked ships that had not yet been removed from recent battles with the System's rebellion force.

  "The ninth solar group is ternary with two Class-G stars," Pacoima-le touched a contact point on the holograph's control spread and a section of the star grid magnified. "The second Class-G star is now showing a planet that was undetected prior to this report. The solar grouping's third star is Class-M with high levels of delta radiation. It could go nova soon; a major source of the solar radiation interference." The Tauron paused, tabbing at a dark icon on the control panel. It illuminated and a neighboring holoset displayed the hologram of an ovoid-shaped probe. Below its 3-D representation were listings
on its class, sensor types, power, and performance ratings. The officer went on, "The Deep-Space probe droidship was deployed to collect and return planetary and astrophysical data far beyond the range of the armada's sensors. It was mounted with a specially modified miniature deflector control system, allowing the probe to operate in stealth mode, relaying data without fear of detection by hostile forces."

  "What seems to be the problem?" the Ba’al Sirdar asked, picking up on the other's apprehension.

  "The probe was destroyed just under two nodes ago by an external force, Ba’al Sirdar."

  "Reason?"

  "Last sensor reports confirm it was tracking a heat source in its vicinity, and warmth is a good indication of life, Sire. However, the entire Thilen Group is supposed to be devoid of life..."

  "Visual," Cabbon-le boomed without further deliberation.

  Without delay, an adjacent holoset conjured up a quarter-sized image of an all-terrain vehicle streaking across alien flatlands.

  "Terran colonist?" the lord commander questioned the data captioned below the image. "From..." he said reading further, then his face and neck clenched closed. "They're Aidennians!" Cabbon-le looked toward an officer wearing a crimson uniform with matching cape. "Sirdar Taanach-le," he addressed him, "contact Ba’al Sirdar Eyer-le on-board the Rue Saxer. Confirm this report." As the officer consented to do the Tauron's bidding, Cabbon-le faced his second-in-command, "Sub-sirdar Pacoima-le, as soon as you get confirmation from the Rue Saxer, lock into that probe's last reported position and prepare your troops."

  "Ba’al?" Pacoima-le said.

  "Yes?"

  Motioning toward the astrophysical display set again, the sub-sirdar fingered several controls and conjured up the schematic of an unfamiliar spaceship design. A scrolling list captioned itself below the hologram showing its hull number, name, model designation, date entering service, and current disposition. Cabbon-le knew that the disposition was represented by the letter codes given and was followed by the date of occurrence, if known. The Tauron letter for B meant Built and the corresponding letter for L meant Lost, whereabouts unknown. The Lord Sirdar raised the crested ridge above his eyes seeing that the latter accompanied the construction date.