Solbidyum Wars Saga 4: Too Late for Earth

by Dale C. Musser

“It’s working; you’re just not hearing anything, because there is no air in here for the sound to travel through.” He responded. Suddenly, I felt very dumb, as I should have known that.

  Quickly, our boarding team spread throughout the ship. Several compartments were sealed and there appeared to be people inside. We stationed guards by those doors while Marranalis and I headed to the bridge. Along the way, we encountered several people who had died from asphyxiation when the air exited the ship from the holes in the bridge. When we entered the bridge, I saw the two holes were larger than I had expected, each being about 500mm in diameter. Two members of the ship’s crew lay sprawled on the deck of the ship, but none of them appeared to be the captain. Marranalis moved quickly to the control console. On the vid screen, the action outside could be seen as the battle ensued. Brotherhood ships were turning to face the direction that the shots were coming from as my Mirage Fighters attacked them in full. It could be seen that several of the Brotherhood ships were severely damaged; other of the Brotherhood ships could be seen firing up their engines to flee the area.

  “All the engines are fully functional, Tibby,” Marranalis said as he began maneuvering the ship to dock in the NEW ORLEANS hangar. “So far we don’t seem to have been spotted.”

  “Send word to Stonbersa to drop the RMFF shield and get us in there as quickly as possible.”

  “We have action back here in the crew quarter's area!” The voice of one of my troops announced over the suit com system. “It would appear that some of the crew had their cabins sealed when the ship depressurized and donned their spacesuits and are now firing on us.”

  “Can you keep them busy for about five more minutes?” Marranalis responded as he worked controls on the console.

  “Yes sir,” the voice came back. “They seem to be pretty much trapped with nowhere to go. However, once you get this crate aboard the NEW ORLEANS, we’re going to need to clean them out.”

  “Hopefully, once we get this ship aboard the NEW ORLEANS those remaining crew members will surrender. We need several live prisoners to interrogate about the Tottalax weapon and how they communicate with the Tottalax.” I said.

  We had nearly completed getting the small Brotherhood ship inside the NEW ORLEANS, when either the Brotherhood spotted what was happening or a shot from one of the ships went wild and hit the NEW ORLEANS. Once we had cleared the RMFF shield range with the captured ship, Stonbersa activated the RMFF and more shots were deflected from it.

  “Tibby, we’ve been hit,” the Commodore's voice came across my com unit, “but it’s not any serious damage. The shot hit one of the transit tubes along the exterior hull and we’ll have to shut it down for repair, but we can still use the one on the other side in the interim.”

  Now that we were inside the NEW ORLEANS hangar bay, we could no longer see the action going on outside.

  “How’s the battle going?” I asked Stonbersa.

  “Now that you are back aboard, we are firing with our guns and have the Brotherhood trapped between us. Many of the Brotherhood ships are fleeing the area-- wait a minute… Oh my! Tibby, get your crew off that Brotherhood ship as quickly as you can! The Brotherhood are blowing up their own ships! They must have them booby trapped them to prevent capture and are self-destructing to avoid capture. Get your crew and get off of there as quickly as you can! I’ll open the main hangar bay door, so if their ship explodes the force will be directed out and reduce the damage to the NEW ORLEANS."

  The Commodore must have had Marranalis included in the broadcast, because Marranalis suddenly began issuing commands for all the troopers to get off the ship immediately. We were all leaping from the airlock hatch as there had been no time to lower the gangway. As soon as our feet hit the deck, we were running to get behind the blast doors that separated the hangar from the rest of the ship. When I reached the doors, I looked back to see two of my men struggling with a figure in a different design spacesuit from ours; they appeared to be trying to force this person along, and he was resisting. Marranalis ran out to help subdue him, and the three of them managed to get him safely behind the blast door and the doors sealed, when suddenly a violent explosion rocked the ship.”

  “Tibby, did you make it?” The Commodore’s anxious voice came over the com system.”

  “Yes, thanks to your warning. I think we all made it,” I said looking at Marranalis, who was doing a head count. He turned to me and nodded.”

  “Our cameras of the hangar area are all out. We have no idea of the extent of the damage. Can you assess it from there?" the Commodore came back.

  “We’ll give it a look over,” I replied.

  “Marranalis took a team and they moved out into the hangar area to check out the damage. In the meantime, more of my security team arrived to remove the prisoner and to check out the hangar area.

  “Tibby,” Marranalis’s voice came over the com. “We have a lot of damage here. Most of patrol ships and shuttles that were still aboard in the hangar are useless scrap metal now. I don’t think we will be able to get the hangar door closed; and until we can clean up some of this mess and eject it, we won’t be able to bring the Mirage Fighters back onboard, either. The walls and blast doors seemed to have prevented any damage to the interior of the ship, but a lot of work is going to be needed to get this area back up and functioning.”

  “Commodore, did you get that?” I asked.

  “Affirmative! We’ll need to let the Mirage Fighters know they can’t come back aboard the NEW ORLEANS for a while.”

  “It’s too bad my personal hangar isn’t larger, or we could bring ships in down there with the ALI." I responded.

  By now, all Brotherhood ships had either exited the area or had been blown up. We counted debris and from that we deduced nine ships had been destroyed. The Commodore asked that I make an announcement from the bridge to the rest of the ship about what had happened, since everyone had felt the force of the explosion but didn’t know what had caused it. They had been contacting the bridge wanting to know what had happened. When I arrived on the bridge, the Commodore activated the all ships communication link.

  “Attention everyone, by now I am sure all of you are wondering about the shock wave you felt go through the ship. First let me tell you that everything is safe and no one is in danger. A few hours ago we encountered a fleet of Brotherhood ships sitting in space. We monitored conversation between the ships and discovered they were waiting for a Tottalax ship to join up with them; at the moment we are guessing it may be the same ship we saw at Earth and followed to the nebula. We decided to try and capture one of the Brotherhood ships in hopes of learning how they communicate with the Tottalax and how they protect themselves from the Tottalax weapon. We attacked the Brotherhood and tried to capture one of their ships. We had nearly succeeded in our mission after bringing the ship into hangar, when suddenly the Brotherhood began blowing up all their disabled ships. Our team quickly evacuated the enemy ship before it exploded, but we were unable to eject it from the ship before it blew up. Our blast walls and doors were able to direct the force of the explosion out the open hangar door; however, there is extensive damage to the hanger. Everything else in the ship is fully functional and we are in no danger. Our RMFF shields are up and fully functional, and as soon as our crew is able to clean the debris out of the hangar, we will be retrieving all our Mirage Fighters and will continue on to Megelleon. None of our crew was hurt or injured, and we did manage to capture one prisoner for questioning; we will turn him over to the Federation once we reach Megelleon.”

  The reaction to my announcement was not what I expected. Those of my crew who had been with me the longest went about things in a routine manner and seemed little affected by the event, but the refugees from Earth who had only been aboard a short time seemed to be highly disturbed by the news and reacted as though at any moment their life’s might end. Fortunately, the calm nature of my crew seemed to dissipate the anxiety rather quickly. Dr. Hughes related that after the explosion, the num
ber of refuges coming to see him with panic attacks doubled, but the calm composure of the crew and their casual manner soothed the concerns among the other passengers. Of course, Ming was highly upset by the events and fumed that I was putting his life in danger, and that he was too important an individual to have his life put at risk over some silly feud between the Federation and the Brotherhood. I was starting to wonder how he had risen to such a level of power to begin with; I came to the conclusion that he probably wasn’t always like that, but his slow rise to his high-ranking position in the Chinese government had compounded into megalomania over the years.

  It took two days of concentrated labor before the hangar bay was cleared of enough debris to allow the Mirage Fighters to return to the ship. Many of our patrol ships and shuttles had to be spaced as they had been reduced to junk in the explosion; but before we could space them, we first needed to remove the cloaking devices and DSC units, so they wouldn’t fall into the hands of the Brotherhood. We disintegrated most of the ships once they were floating in space with weapon fire from the NEW ORLEANS just to make sure. The Commodore contacted the shipyard at Nibaria and ordered replacement ships, but it would be months before they all were ready, with all the ships that the Nibarians were currently fabricating, so additional ships were also ordered from the shipyards at Plosaxen as well. With a little help from Senator Tonclin, we were able to get the Nibarian shipyard to move the NEW ORLEANS repairs to the front of the work list, and with the help of surveys done by my engineering department on the ship, a list of the necessary repairs and supplies needed was forwarded to the shipyard.

  In the meantime, my security team was interrogating our prisoner, who it turned out was the second officer on the ship. He had been off duty and sleeping in his cabin when we attacked, and the seal on his door had kept his cabin pressurized long enough for him to get into his spacesuit. At first he was very belligerent and refused to talk. However, when he found out that the Brotherhood had blown up many of their own ships to avoid capture, and that one of those ships was the one he was on, he softened up a bit.

  His name was Gatsner; he was a commander of the ship we had captured. Marranalis and Kerabac interrogated him with A’Lappe’s help, monitoring him with the headband unit to detect if he was lying or telling the truth.

  “So, commander, are you ready to tell us about the Tottalax weapon and how you avoid the effects of it when it’s used?” Marranalis asked.

  “Burn in the sun of Orsocsas,” Gatsner spat.

  “It looked to me like that’s what your fellow Brotherhood members expected you to do. After all, they did blow up the ship you were on.” Kerabac said, as he sat casually on the end of the interrogation table examining his fingernails.

  “They probably thought I was already dead,” Gatsner muttered.

  “Oh yeah, like all the other ships with your brothers aboard, I suppose?” Kerabac replied as he activated the vid screen in the room so Gatsner could see the crippled Brotherhood ships being blown up.

  “Damn! I knew that Shydak could not be trusted!,” the prisoner snarled.

  “Shydak!” Shydak was with the fleet? I asked, suddenly becoming alert at that name.

  “Ha, like that Korgian blood sucker would be anywhere near action.” Gatsner replied. “But you can be sure he was the one that gave the orders for the explosive devices to be placed on our ships. He’d kill his own mother to get ahead; probably did, too.”

  It took all my restraint to keep from jumping across the table and grabbing Gatsner as I asked, “You know where he is?”

  “Maybe, but why should I tell you?”

  “Well, maybe we wouldn’t have to take you back to the Federation to face trial as an enemy of the Federation.” I said. Kerabac looked at me strangely.

  Gatsner squirmed on his seat. “If I tell you, how do I know you won’t just kill me?”

  I thought a minute and then said, “How about I swear to it while wearing the headband. You can see if I am lying or not?” I could see the commander struggling with that for a bit.

  “What would you do with me?”

  “Marranalis, do we have any shuttles that are still functional?” I asked.

  “We have about three. They are a bit battered on the exterior, but they are all fully functional.”

  “Ok, Commander, here’s my deal. You tell me everything you know about Shydak and his whereabouts, the Tottalax weapon and how the Brotherhood communicate with them. In return, I’ll give you a functioning shuttle equipped with a food synthesizer and capable of flying you to just about any place you want to go. We turn you loose and you are free to go wherever you want.” I could see the commander mulling over the idea.

  “Throw in 500,000 chip credits, and it’s a deal. I’m going to need something to live on for a while ‘cause I’m going to have to hide out somewhere for a long time. If Shydak ever finds out I talked to you, he’ll see to it I die a slow and horrible death.”

  I looked at Kerabac and Marranalis; neither showed any expression.

  “Okay, we have a deal. Now you tell us what you know.”

  “First you got to swear, while wearing the head band, to the agreement,” Gatsner said.

  After I made my offer while wearing the headband and Gatsner was finally convinced that we would give him a shuttle and let him go, he began to open up and talk. He didn’t know how the Tottalax weapon worked, but the way the Brotherhood escaped the effect of it was by wearing small ear bud devices. Unfortunately, all of those were blown up on the Brotherhood ships, so we didn’t have anything to copy to get the technology. The Tottalax, it seemed, were mute and could not make any sounds. While they could detect sounds, they didn’t rely on sound for communication and instead communicated by changing and controlling color and patterns on areas on their flesh. For long-distance communication, they displayed similar patterns and colors on a vid screen. The Brotherhood had a computer program that could convert the images into verbal messages and vice versa for communication; once again, we were out of luck, as it also was destroyed with the Brotherhood ships.

  When it came to Shydak, however, the information was a lot more useful. According to Gatsner, Shydak had flown to Megelleon where he intended to meet with the head of the Brotherhood. Gatsner didn’t seem to know just who it was, but he seemed pretty sure it was someone with connections inside the Federation, because the individual was able to provide the Brotherhood with detailed information as to what was going on inside the government. This corresponded to what we knew, as we had already discovered links in the FOI and the Senate to Brotherhood sympathizers, and it was possible that the Brotherhood leader could easily be in one of those two places. According to Gatsner, Shydak was the number three man in the Brotherhood, but he didn’t know who number two or one were, and their identities were closely guarded secrets.

  “How long ago did Shydak leave for Megelleon, and when was he expected back?” I inquired.

  The commander replied, “He left two days ago; we had planned to meet up with him later at Plosaxen for an attack there after the Tottalax returned.”

  “Plosaxen? When is that supposed to happen?” Kerabac jumped in with the question.

  “I don’t know. We weren’t given a time; I only know it was sometime after the Tottalax got back and we don’t know how long that will be. The Tottalax aren’t the most reliable or prompt race you've ever met. Besides, now that you busted up our rendezvous here, it’s unlikely Shydak will go through with that plan; he’ll move on to another target.”

  “Marranalis, make contact with Admiral Regeny and pass on what we have found out, also pass the information on to Commander…. uh, to the FSO and let them know about this as well.” I had caught myself before I gave away Wabussie’s identity and involvement with the FSO. I was taking a risk just mentioning the FSO, but I hoped that Gatsner would either forget it or confuse it with the FOI. Even if he did repeat it later, no one outside of a few in the Federation knew what the FSO was, or that it existed. Then I got an
other idea.

  “Excuse me a moment,” I said to Gatsner, “A’Lappe, could I speak with you outside?”

  “Certainly, Tibby,” he answered as he slid down out of his chair. Once in the corridor outside I said,

  “A’Lappe, I know the headbands can wipe out memories from a person’s mind. Can you select what memories it wipes?”

  A’Lappe looked up at me and blinked with his large eyes, “Yes, but not selectively. I can erase blocks of memories for a time period, but it will take everything in that period and not just select items.”

  “So you could erase Gatsner’s memories for… let’s say the past three hours?” I suggested.

  “Yes, though it may be a bit more or less, it’s hard to get it right.”

  “I see. A’Lappe, I need you to go find Dr. Hughes for me and bring him to the small conference room across the corridor. Let me know when you are back; I want to talk to you both before I do anything more.”

  After A’Lappe had headed off on his mission, I returned to the interrogation room where Kerabac and Marranalis where both busy asking the commander about details within the Brotherhood and their recent plans and movements. The commander provided some details, but came up short on most things, and it appeared that the higher echelon of the Brotherhood didn’t allow many details to filter down to their lower-ranking members. Most of what we learned, we already knew. “Kerabac, can you call Padaran to come here?” I asked suddenly as yet another idea hit me. Kerabac raised an eyebrow in a questioning look but did as I asked. It took about five minutes for Padaran to show up at the interrogation room.

  “You wanted to see me?” He asked as he entered.

  “Yes, Padaran, it’s occurred to me that as a leader of the Ruwallie Rasson you have several ex-Brotherhood ships under your command, or at least as part of the Ruwallie Rasson possessions. It’s very possible that some, if not all of those ships might have programs in their computer systems for communicating with the Tottalax. It’s also likely that there may be some ear-buds used by the Brotherhood that protect them from the Tottalax weapon. I need for you to contact the Ruwallie Rasson back at Goo’Waddle, have them transfer any existing Brotherhood data that may still be in their computers onboard the ships to a storage transfer device; and if they have found any ear buds on any of the Ruwallie Rasson ships, to send them all via a GW pod to you at Megelleon at my estate. Oh, and have Tondor pay any of the Ruwallie Rasson whatever you think is a reasonable reward for their service and have Kala reimburse you for it.”