by Ben Winston
“I can see the logic of that, but to leave her out there all alone, with no help in the area. I would question the wisdom of that action. However, that is none of my concern. Since she was doing a recon, then a satellite was at least providing cover. Did we get a location for the missile's launch point?”
Warmake seemed to cringe. “No. She was sent in while a storm system was building in the sector. I did check, but for some reason the orbital's infrared and launch tracking facilities were off-line. The explanation I got was the bird was in use by the Met department. They had disabled those two functions so they could use the storm track programs.””
He paused and lowered his voice. “It sounded like lizard bait to me, but I really doubt the pirates would be so organized as to have an agent in the Meteorology department to cover for them 'in the case' that something like this would happen.”
Jance frowned. “Yet they had managed to get access to military grade weapons that have no place on this planet to begin with. Do you have any theories on how they got those?”
“A private theory, nothing more,” Warmake said.
“Please, share it.”
“Well, pirates like this don't just up and decide to start raiding and killing one day. I figure that they had to come from off planet, in which case, perhaps they had hit a military transport of one of the house military's. That would explain their weapons and some of their resources,” He said, then shrugged. “I'd never heard of such a transport ever being attacked, but I suppose it could happen.”
“All such raids and attacks are supposed to be reported to the local office of the HRO. I assure you, we know of no such raid,” Jance said.
“Well, no, you wouldn't. You see, you have to think like one of the Dukes; I mean, none of them would want it known that one of their transports was hit. It would make them look weak and the other Dukes would begin to stage a few of their own raids if you know what I mean. Hell, the black market has to get its supplies from somewhere right?”” Warmake explained.
Jance gave him a small smile. “You are very perceptive, Task Commander. I'm beginning to believe your skills are being wasted here.”
Warmake snorted. “If I'm so damn perceptive, then you should have only had to pick up the pirates after I'd captured them for you.” He snorted again, this time in frustration. “There is something missing here and I'm not seeing it! It's driving me mad!”
“Perhaps we can help each other. What part of this is bothering you?” Jance asked.
“These pirates; they hit a few supply trains, or raid a floater, but they've never gone out of their way to hurt anyone. Now, all of a sudden, they blow the shielding on an Aerie reactor? Why? Where is the payoff?” Warmake explained.
“What about the victims of the train robbery? They died did they not?” Jance asked.
He nodded. “But that could just have been base stupidity on their part more than negligence of the pirates. The tower that the pirates stopped the tram at had a survival station built into its base. There is only one of those stations per sector on the train line. They could have stopped the train anywhere along that line and simply thrown the passengers off. No, they picked that location on purpose.
“Surveillance cameras confirm that the passengers entered the station. It was their choice to leave it, and against the posted instructions too, I might add,” Warmake explained. “None of the floaters they've raided had a crew, so no one was hurt there.”
“What about the Addson Dee incident? Firing a missile at someone is a pretty obvious thing to do,” Jance replied.
“Is it?” Warmake said, warming to his explanation. “That particular missile system uses a multi-spectrum tracking suite by default. The only possible way a skipper could have avoided even the first missile was if it had been intentionally programmed to restrict itself to optical search mode. Addson Dee managed to evade two of the missiles,” he paused. “I think it was because they were trying to scare her off, not kill her.””
“That doesn't track for me, Task Commander,” Jance replied. “If they were only trying to scare her off, there are hundreds of less lethal ways to do it.””
Warmake nodded. “Yes there are, but not too many of them are possible during a storm of that size. Even the floater that proved Addson's ultimate bane diverted after the collision. I don't know if you're familiar with floaters, but it takes a serious weather event to turn one of those aside.
“At the time of the attack, three of the four quads of the sector were in the full fury of the storm. The storm itself covered the better part of nine sectors! That's the reason rescue attempts were so slow in responding; it was too dangerous for them to search until after the storm passed and by then the wreckage was spread over the entire sector.””
“Are the pirates not listed as responsible for her death?” Jance asked.
Warmake nodded. “Yes they are, like the passengers from the train, she was put in harm's way by the actions of the pirates. In both cases it proved lethal, thus ultimate responsibility must rest on the pirates. However, I would counter that she wouldn't have even been there if she hadn't been sent, at the last minute, by the Aerie Argassi APC.””
Jance was thoughtful for a time. During her silence, the pilot reported that they'd arrived in Beta Quad. Below them was the solid form of a floater with the impact marks still showing on its side.
“Is that the original floater?” Jance asked.
Warmake nodded. “Yes, according to its logs, this is where the impact happened. On board cameras managed to capture most of what happened to Addson's skipper. Her maneuver was risky, but she did manage to evade the missile. If she would have started her leap even microseconds earlier, she would most likely still be alive.”
“Doubtful, if she had survived the jump over the floater, the third missile would have launched and finished the job. No, once that system had been locked onto her, she was doomed. Which is why I disagree with your hypothesis; that system has four missiles.
“Once the target is locked onto, the first missile launches. All of its data is passed to the three remaining missiles. If it misses, the second is launched. It hunts smarter, and so on, all the way to the last missile. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever survived the third missile. However, I don't think I've ever heard of a person in something as limited as a skipper surviving even the first one,” Jance explained. “That being said, I have to credit your hypothesis because the warhead of the missile that hit this floater had to have been greatly retarded.”
“We credited the lack of damage to the floater to the fact of its construction. They have a duraluminum outer shell, over a tritium-fibersteel inner hull reinforced with magnetized Cryotanium polymer,” Warmake explained. “They're built to handle just about anything they can run into.”
“Damn! That is really built, but even so, if the warhead was at full strength, it would have seriously damaged it. No, this warhead was all but disabled; hell it could have been disabled and the scoring we see is from the flight motor,” Jance replied. ““Thank you, Task Commander. I think perhaps I have enough to begin my investigations now. May we please return to Argassi?”
“Of course, Commander. Would you also like the floater returned there for further investigation?” Warmake asked.
“Yes, thank you. I would like to run forensic analysis for the impact site as well as the areas where the skipper hit.”
Warmake typed in the request on his data pad, and below them the floater came to life. Without being told, the pilot also turned the craft and accelerated away from the area.
Bedouin residence
Command Pod Alpha One
23 Apr. 10266 CE (AD)
Sector 34871 - Great Inland Sea
Earth, Sol system
Ben stood in the middle of the room. “Before we begin, I would like to make introductions.” He waved his hand as he introduced each person. “These are our guests, Captain Elrond Coir; the current chief of the group known simply as 'the Pirates'. Beside him is hi
s lady, Ms. Arivan Jythee.” He introduced the rest of the people to the newcomers and greetings were exchanged.
However, before Ben could get to the meat of the discussion, Councilor Carlyle asked a question. “Excuse me, Prime Council. I don't mean to sound rude, but I thou' th' goal of yon raid was to gather information prior to eliminatin' them?”
The news was clearly a shock to the two new people, but Ben didn't miss a beat. “That was the original plan, Councilor. However, things have changed. Thus, the reason I included you in this meeting is for you to act in the capacity of Council Adviser. We need to figure out how this will affect us and what to do about it if anything.”
“I understand,” Councilor Carlyle nodded. “Thank ye for askin' for me, then,” she said. “I ken you wanted me because of me post-fall profession, then?”
Ben nodded this time. “Yes I did. We do have other former intelligence operatives among our people, but you are the only one I know and trust personally.
“So, here is what we know, suspect, and believe,” Ben began. “First, before we made the raid on the base, we suspected that the Duke was the primary behind all the attacks on the surface. Elrond has confirmed that for us, but can offer no proof. Thus, we still can only speculate on his motivation for these actions.
“I believe he's planning a coup against the Empire itself. Now, this is mostly conjecture on my part and I have no proof. I've given this a lot of thought and it’s the only conclusion that fits.
“However, those actions, made through Elrond and his people, have attracted the attention of the local Imperial Rangers. They landed two days ago to investigate the destruction of the Great Falls Aerie. So now we have a new element added to the mix.
“I'm told these Rangers are very good at their jobs, and there is now a very good chance that Elrond, his people, and by extension, us, will be discovered. However, that runs counter to my theory of an Imperial attack,” Ben said and paused to take a drink of his cappuccino.
“Why's ta' odds with yon theory?” Carlyle asked. "I'm not trackin' yer logic Prime."
“Simple; the Duke had to have known that destroying an Aerie would bring in the Rangers. If he planned to attack Hyclarion using Earth as a staging point, the last thing he would want would be for Rangers to look under every rock. Also, he recently ordered Elrond to kill the team, and capture their leader. That action by itself would bring even more Rangers and they would be even less gentle than this team is being. His preparations would be discovered and he'd be found out.”
“Uh, p-Prime Council, I think I might have some more information,” Elrond said, hesitantly. “You see, all the ohto and other stuff we stole had to be given back. One of my people that handled a lot of the shipments told me that there were hundreds of House Tammerain troops already here at the underwater base where we returned our cargoes. He said there seemed to be more every day. The transports were all parked on the bottom of the sea surrounding the base. If the HRO does any planetary scans looking for us, they should find them quite easily.”
“What type of scans?” Marci asked.
“Multi-spectrum, broad bandwidth, ultra-high resolution scans. Everything from thermal differences to energy signatures to neutrino particle density,” Elrond said, shrugging. “That's why I was so scared they would find us. We should show up like a super-nova in the void.”
“Energy scans on this planet are inconclusive," Addson added, shaking her head. "There are too many random energy flares from all the ruins. There are literally billions of energy signatures spread all over the planet.”
“Surely they can tell the difference between random pulses and a fully functioning reactor?” Carlyle asked.
“Not really, you see the Ancients... uh, I guess that's you folks, used a lot of fission reactors. The waste from those crude devices is still creating energy even after all these years. A really huge power signature was detected once on the Aramic Plateau and was investigated. No one really understood what they found, but later discovered to have been a special dump for the spent fuel of fission reactors.
“Thirteen prospectors had died digging down to it. It finally had to be disintegrated just to get rid of the lethals. Since then, no one pays much attention to energy flares and the like. No one wants to deal with them, so they just leave them alone,” Addson replied.
“Well, I guess now we know why no one ever dug one of us up. But still, if someone starts investigating the energy signatures, we're going to be in trouble,” Kaitlin said as she carried a platter of sandwiches into the room.
“True, but there are other ways to track things,” Elrond said. “Whenever a craft or ship passes through an area, it always makes some form of disturbance. Depending on the local conditions of the area, that disturbance can be detected and tracked with the right tools. So, the more we move around, the easier it is for someone on the surface to track us.”
“Are you talking about that Neutrino thing you mentioned earlier?” Ben asked.
“Well, that's one way to do it, but not what I was thinking about. Tracking ocean currents or looking for micro-changes in the atmosphere both above and below water; of course both of those methods become unreliable if enough time passes,” Elrond explained. ““May I ask a question that's off topic?”
“Yes,” Ben replied.
“Why would you attack us? We didn't even know you were here,” Elrond asked.
Ben looked thoughtful for a moment. “Because of your proximity. Our survival is fully dependent on remaining undiscovered. We have a very large population that have no desire to become anyone's vassals. Besides, we feel that this is our planet and from the way we understand things on the surface and in the Galaxy, just coming out from hiding wouldn't be any guarantee that we'd be left alone. We want our planet back and we want our own autonomy. This is the home world of the human race. We originated here. We deserve the same rights as everyone else in the Empire.”
“How large is your population? For that matter, how large an army do you have?” Arivan asked.
“I'm sorry, Ms. Jythee. I think we need to keep that information to ourselves for now. I do feel that I can trust you, but there is too much at risk for me to take a gamble like that,” Ben replied. “I hope you can understand that. I really don't mean to be rude.”
“Well, I thought I'd ask, since you know all of our secrets...” she replied.
“Excuse me, but did you say this planet is our home world?” Elrond asked.
Ben looked at Addson. “Why don't you tell them about what you've learned about us, but please don't mention anything about our people or how we live?”
The young woman bowed her head to him. Then looked at Elrond. “After you fired those missiles at me and I crashed into the floater, I was in pretty bad shape. In fact, not all of my injuries have fully healed yet.
“But when they came to rescue me, I thought they were the pirates originally. If I had had a working comm system, I would have reported everything that was going on. Luckily, I didn't, because that would have gotten these people discovered. Once they opened the escape pod, and started helping me, I knew that these people couldn't be the pirates because they cared."
Elrond winced again during her explanation; embarrassed about his part in her 'death'.
She continued. “The emergency medical AI in the skipper managed to find a common form of communication so we could speak to each other. That really threw me; I mean who could these people be that they didn't speak standard?
“A lot of the equipment they were using wasn't familiar to me, but what was seemed really old or functioned in an odd manner. What they told me about who they were was impossible for me to believe. I mean how could they have been here all along and no one have discovered them?
“I've seen the cryo units. The medical AI confirmed that the information stored in this AI matched what I'd been told. However, it also said that while the Base AI was of an old design, it was far more powerful than any other AI currently functioning.
“I've seen their maps of this world from their time. Every discovery we've made matches the location of one of their cities or large communities. However, there are quite a few that have yet to be discovered. I was a prospector up until you shot me down, so I know what I'm talking about here. These people are part of the original inhabitants of this planet,”” Addson finished.
Elrond nodded. “I believe you. But what I'm wondering is, if this is our world, why hasn't any proof of it been discovered in the ruins?”
“Aye and there's the rub. Evidence o' plenty was left, tah be sure. So then becomes the question of who does the lookin'?” Carlyle asked.
“All of the dig teams work for the Duke. They have to; it's his world, which means that everything on it is his,” Addson replied. “Not such a big surprise there. If it were proven that Earth was the home world of the Human race, he would lose a very profitable planet, millions of slaves, as well as the only habitable planet in this sector."
“Okay, so I think it’s safe to assume then, at least for the time being, that the Duke is the main bad guy here,” Ben said. ““Now the questions are why, and what's his next move?”
“The Duke has made no secret of his dislike for humans,” Deirdre said. “He thinks we're nothing more than a food source. You said that this Ranger team was led by a human, right?”” She asked looking at Elrond.
He nodded. “Yes and he was very specific in his instructions, should we have to kill her.”
“So, what are the chances that something very embarrassing to the Duke happened between them?” Deirdre asked.
“I just don't know,” Elrond replied. “It's possible. That would certainly explain his instructions and the speed he wanted them carried out.””
“So, is his ego and hatred for us enough for him to justify endangering his over-all plan?” Deirdre asked.
“Yeah, it is. If a human embarrassed him, he would stop at nothing to destroy that person as publicly as possible. It might be possible that he realized this and has ordered us to ignore his last orders, but I doubt it. He's rather blind when it comes to humans,” Elrond added.
