by David Buck
The Maveen response was immediate; a large blue laser shot out from two of the alien probes, and each beam carved into the Zumwalt cruisers amidships where their large vertical 150 mm guns were located. The two US cruisers staggered under the attack and slowed. The other four probes above the US fleet emitted a shrill shriek of electronic noise and their shields seemed to expand like miniature suns. The electronics warfare officer on the bridge of the carrier yelled.
‘Admiral all our electronic systems are fried and communications are gone to other ships. I suspect we have been hit with a massive electro-magnetic pulse.’
The admiral looked out from the bridge as vision returned to his eyes after the flash of light was gone seconds later. Also gone were the three remaining larger space ships and the six smaller black space ships.
‘See if the satellite phones work and order the fleet to turn to the west and reduce speed, this battle is over. I then want a damage report from the cruisers. Also I want status reports on the electronic damage to the fleet. And someone can use a satellite phone to recall those helicopters.’
The bridge of HMAS Sydney was stonily silent as they had just witnessed from a distance a very one sided exchange. The brief battle between the US fleet and the alien ships were over from what they could gather of the diminished electronic traffic now available. The Australian officers noted that only the six smaller black ships had fired at the US 5th fleet itself during last seconds of the engagement.
Commander Jane Walker prudently ordered both her frigates on a course northeast towards the coast further into Australian territorial waters. As far as the commander could tell the US fleet had attacked and been driven off, with two of their powerful cruisers badly damaged and a submarine probably destroyed. Also one or possibly two of the smaller space ships was now damaged or destroyed. The commander left a message for the US admiral on a satellite phone offering assistance but was not expecting a response soon.
Jane also got the message from the smaller alien ships replayed to the bridge, Steve was right she decided, the aliens had been forced here and would leave of their own accord if given the opportunity. She now carefully prepared her report identifying the total in-ability of the US forces to interdict these space ships successfully. This was highlighted by the fact that the other larger ships had not returned fire on the US fleet. Jane had then added the voice message from the aliens, and finally included the input she had received from both Steve and Douglas the previous day. Jane decided that once she had spoken with the admiral at Fleet West she would place a call to Steve Greene.
***
Captain Narindestat felt grief that he struggled to put to one side when he saw sneak ship two shot down. For three Traders had been killed when the ship had spiraled into the ocean. With the US fleet now having withdrawn to the west, sneak ship nine had managed to dock with the crippled sneak ship two. The reports were bleak for the sneak ship and her crew, with three other badly injured crew members being ferried back to the main Trader ship. Sneak ship four was now abandoned and still flooding on her slow way down to the seafloor.
The captain would send also his sneak ships back for the damaged sneak ship four, hopefully once the humans desisted with further attacks. He knew the records of the battle would be valuable if they were captured by a vassal race after leaving Earth. He was satisfied that they had obeyed the key law of not attacking a pre-space civilization on their own home world, even if it had cost him two ships and three dead crewmembers. Narindestat was not sure how the Maveen probe’s actions would ever be evaluated at all; though the point could be made that minimum force was used to protect their existence. He knew that the problem with this line of reasoning was that the vassals would state that the Traders and Maveen were on a world they had no right to be on in the first place.
The Traders and Maveen were aware of two other human surface ships closer to the island continent shadowing them. But the space ships had accelerated to over ninety knots underwater and had out distanced them. Much later the Illuria had all but surfaced as it recovered the six Maveen probes. The crew had pumped a small amount of seawater out of the cargo hold, as the Illuria then increased speed again and submerged to a depth of five hundred meters. The smaller Trader space ships still remained submerged and headed north well off the coast at high speed. The captain decided he would first surface and later land on an offshore series of small islands he had identified to the west from the island continent.
Captain Narindestat then ordered sneak-ship six, currently the point ship, to fly overhead ahead and check out the islands. He was also still mindful of the Voorde infestation he had cornered on his ship, and he decided to make plans to remove the remnant of the infestation from his ship. As if he did not have enough worries, Emeria had now reported that several of the crew was now bedridden with a more several form of the respiratory illness that affected their breathing.
Several crew meanwhile sported bandages around their cheeks over their glimmer tattoos after they had been immersed in seawater. The crew reported that their tattoos itched and stank, and that they felt unwell and irritable all the time, but no one was bedridden with the tattoo illness yet. In the shielded research rig several drones had sickened and died, to become food for the remaining drones. The remaining drones appeared healthy now and had gone into hibernation to conserve the limited oxygen in the research rig.
In the locked upper cargo hold the queen and several drones also remained alive, with the black marks on their bodies now healed. As her drones lay dormant in hibernation the Voorde queen had slowly been working on the wall panels inside the hold. For a being the size and nearly the strength of a waldo unit, the reinforced titanium alloy panels in the hold were difficult, but not impossible to make an impression on.
On the bridge of the Trader ship, a warning buzzer interrupted Captain Narindestat as he sat in his command chair speaking with the pilot of sneak ship six. One of crew accessed the alarm details and noted the location in the ship.
‘Captain the integrity alarm is for the upper internal section of the main cargo hold. A small panel has been buckled and then shifted.’
‘The Voorde queen....’ spoke the captain calmly before he issued further orders.
‘Lieutenant Garendestat, form up three teams, each with six crew all suited and armed. Take them into the hold and deal with those remaining Voorde drones. Enlist the aid of the Maveen mini probes if you can and don’t forget the research rig.’
Lieutenant Garendestat strode quickly from the bridge to his nearby suit locker, within minutes he was joined by several other Trader crew as they began suiting up.
***
Steve had been up before daybreak, and had joined two other crew members that were keen anglers to take a runabout out to go fishing. After spending yesterday on a backlog of dull paper work he was trying to put his thoughts and concerns of the events further south on hold. Mindful of the fishing habitat zone, they had taken the runabout over to an area well off the Abrolhos islands that he remembered from many years ago as being a good fishing spot. Within minutes of starting the drift and tossing the berley over the side they all had several bites. The three of them had caught a few snapper and morwong after another hour of fishing.
Steve had then taken the runabout over to the outer channel on the east side of the Pelsaert group for another drift and they had also caught two decent dhufish. Two hours later Steve had just sat in his command chair on the Aurora Discovery, and started to sip a cup of coffee as Dan and Samantha walked onto the bridge.
Dan gave him some good natured ribbing about his fishing.
‘If you repeat this morning’s effort too often we won’t have any fish left to export. And yes I know you did not get any of them from the sea pens.’
Samantha gave Steve a kiss and handed him his satellite phone with an instruction.
‘The navy left a message for you to call HMAS Sydney.’
Steve was now surprised, he looked again at the ship’s cl
ock and quickly accessed the 8am video news report via his digital tablet. He turned the tablet towards Samantha and Dan, and they listened attentively as an anxious news reader read her report on the screen.
‘Unconfirmed reports have been received that the US Navy has just intercepted the unknown objects that entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the eastern Indian Ocean four days ago. The US Navy is releasing a statement at 10am. We will have more news to follow later.’
With two hours to wait, Steve called Jane Walker on HMAS Sydney, and after greeting Jane again received the news he had been dreading.
‘Steve, the US 5th fleet attacked the alien ships and they were driven off with nearly three hundred casualties. They have lost an attack submarine and their two cruisers have been heavily damaged, also all their electronic warfare suites have been burned out. The EMP discharge was so strong that several F35 pilots were also killed when their planes crashed into the ocean due to computer failure.’
As Steve considered the news with shock, as he realized that nothing short of tactical nuclear weapons could help humanity in combat with these aliens. The commander of the Sydney then explained the battle to Steve in more detail. Jane stated that until the last few minutes the two alien races had not used their weapons, with the loss of the attack submarine attributed to a collision. Finally Jane played the recording of the metallic voice speaking to the fleet. Steve now sat back in stunned silence, as Jane gave her opinion of the relative strengths of the combatants.
‘Steve, The main alien ship did not even engage the US fleet and the first ships associated with it did not fire their weapons at the fleet itself any stage. It was the smaller black ships, possibly another race associated with them that then released the powerful electro magnetic pulse or EMP blast. I really think that these alien ships were trying to use minimum force to dissuade the US fleet from intercepting their main ship.’
Steve considered the news of the disastrous battle, but focused again on the alien message.
‘Jane they were succinct, two races here to repair and refuel, and they continue to flee. Do you know what course they took after the battle?’
Steve was aware of a pause before Jane replied, and he wondered if he was asking too much given he was no longer in the navy.
‘Well after they left the central part of the Naturaliste plateau their course heading is due north-east from what we can tell. They went past our frigates at 11pm last night about one hundred kilometers over the horizon. We got a deep rumble that was doing over ninety knots, and a Seahawk we had picketing out west reported a radar contact on a ship that was now flying above the other ships underwater.’
Steve looked at his charts and made a quick calculation, as ninety knots would place them off the southern approaches to the Abrolhos Islands just after midday, and he stated this point to Jane.
‘I think they are headed this way, due midday. Also Jane have you reported my observations, and Douglas’s, back to Fleet West?’
Jane confirmed that she had done this, and Steve was actually expecting her answer. He knew her command position would require she fully report this matter anyway, as she continued again.
‘We are also talking to the US specialists and Douglas is talking to contacts he has in the states to head off any additional strikes on the aliens.’
With a promise to talk further the phone conversation ended and Steve rapidly brought Dan and Samantha up to date on the details of the battle. Both looked really concerned, even after discussing the possibilities earlier, and Samantha urgently voiced her concerns.
‘Real aliens, as in ETs? Real aliens as in a big ship?’
Steve just quietly nodded and spoke to Dan.
‘Have you got that powerful underwater microphone that you brought aboard last week? Also we need to power it on our Bell helicopter and we need a fifty meters of good power cable. Then we need to be in the air at midday.’
The two men went over the details of their makeshift plan as Samantha listened intently.
***
As Lieutenant Garendestat lead his patrol teams into the main cargo hold, a series of heavy clangs erupted from the sealed upper hold door as the Voorde queen detected their presence and started to charge the doors. Before the crew were in position, a stream of Voorde drones lead the queen out of the upper door after the repeated impacts caused the damaged door to open. The lieutenant muffled a curse and ordered the main internal hold doors secured behind his crew. He then had full control of the cargo hold passed to his suit computer.
‘Captain, the Voorde broke out the hold door as we entered.’
The Voorde drones quickly fled amongst the cargo with several getting close to the silent Maveen probes. Lieutenant Garendestat keyed his radio to the Maveen channel and spoke urgently.
‘Lead probe, the Voorde queen is loose in the main hold and we cannot let her escape elsewhere on the ship.’
The lead probe gave no response, but several Maveen mini probes appeared, and each held a compact but powerful beam weapon. The floating mini-probes coordinated their attacks on the Voorde in flashes of laser light between each other. Each sub-probe looked very dangerous, with their thick red and yellow lines running down their arms and legs, as they went into their purposeful attack with their weapons.
The cargo hold erupted into a pitched battle as the fast moving Voorde dodged and tried to hide behind boxed cargo. The Voorde queen had brushed past three crew members as if they were standing still. Their weapons on stun setting seemed to hardly slow her, and she was punching the locked control panel to open the internal doors to the rest of the ship.
Several of the drones were already dead when Lieutenant Garendestat noticed the increasing number of damage reports for the main cargo hold. The Maveen mini probe’s weapons fire was set to full strength and doing considerable damage to the objects in the hold and he saw a blast impact the hold door controls. Garendestat then watched as another series of blasts hit and damaged the heavy retaining straps for the expensive research rig, under which several drones were hiding. He frantically spoke to the Maveen mini-probes as the damage readings began to increase.
‘Mini-probes hold your fire you are damaging the ship.’
A claxon then sounded and the main cargo hold door lights started flashing. The lieutenant looked over at the large opening doors in shock. He yelled to all his crew to get off the hold floor, and find a way to secure to something solid at the forward end of the hold. The lieutenant went up a flight of stairs to the upper hold area and now radioed the bridge.
‘Captain, the hold door controls have been damaged and the doors are opening underwater.’
The captain acknowledged and unsuccessfully attempted to override the door commands on the bridge after the lieutenant quickly passed his local control back to the bridge. Meanwhile the Trader crew had attacked en masse the Voorde queen and had brought her down with the aid of the last shots from the Maveen mini probes. Within two minutes the slowly opening outer doors stopped halfway and most of the remaining Voorde drones were now hiding under the research rig.
‘This is the best we can do lieutenant. The door controls are damaged, but the shields should hold.’
Garendestat heard several cables holding the heavy research rig snap, and the rig with several Voorde drones still underneath, slowly crept towards the rear of the ship. He knew the floor of the hold sloped slightly aft as they were still trying to drain sea water overboard. The rig promptly snapped the remaining damaged cargo restraints holding it down, and began sliding faster towards the half open main doors. As if an unspoken command had been given, the Maveen mini probes all returned to dock inside the bigger Maveen probes in their docking cradles. Garendestat now raced back down the stairs from the upper hold area, and quickly grabbed a couple of heavy cables to hold down the still sliding research rig.
‘Captain the research rig is sliding out of the cargo hold; we need the nose of the ship down urgently.’
Garendestat ordered his cre
w to stay in place, and fire on the Voorde drones to keep them preoccupied, as the rear of the research rig made contact with the shields keeping out the ocean. The shields seemed to shiver for several moments under the combined weight of the ocean and the research rig, as Garendestat now reached the front of the research rig. The lieutenant attached the heavy cables to the front of the rig, and was looking around for suitable fixing point nearby.
Suddenly with a roar a shield failed and what seemed like half the planet’s ocean poured into the cargo hold. He had the presence of mind to tighten his grip on a heavy cable as the sheer mass of the heavy research rig overcame the torrent of water and the rig assembly slid out of the ship into five hundred meters of water. The Voorde drones outside the plummeting research rig quickly drowned as Garendestat fought his way along the cable to the side of the research rig and activated the radio link on his left arm.
‘Captain I am following the rig down, so come back when you can.’
The captain replied urgently.
‘Son, your space suit will not float and you are in very deep water, stay with the rig, it has an inflatable collar that you can manually activate.’
Quickly Garendestat used suit clumsy fingers to open the rig control box and hit the collar toggle. The next thing he knew was that the inflatable collar instantly inflated and had pushed him off the side of the research rig. The suited form of the Trader now sank quickly head first into the depths under the rapidly rising research rig. He was trailing the heavy cable around his left arm and leg.
‘Captain I have fallen off the rig and … ‘
The heavy cable wound around the Traders left arm and left leg snapped taught and a loud crack erupted, as both the Trader’s left arm fractured and the suit radio was destroyed.
