The Vassal World (The First Exoplanet Book 2)

by T. J. Sedgwick

  THE VASSAL WORLD

  (The First Exoplanet, Book Two)

  by

  T.J. Sedgwick

  Chapter One

  April 8, 2063: Crew Capsule in Exelon Orbit, Avendano System

  April 8, 2063 – a day that would live in infamy. The fifty-second President of the United States, Stephen Powell, was no longer sure there would be anyone left to record history – no one human, at least. Seven years, three months and five days ago, human eyes first recognised the green of Gaia’s forests. Like Earth, Gaia was the third planet from its star. As humanity had found to its cost, it was also the home world of a hostile Alien race. That earth-like planet was orbiting Avendano five astronomical units away from where Powell now sat with his five human compatriots in the basic, decades-old crew capsule. The irony of fleeing from Earth to be closer than ever to the enemy was not lost on him. The Alien fleet now laid siege to the Earth and the options to remove them had been spent. Humanity had thrown everything it could muster against them and had bloodied the enemy’s nose. Now all that was left of Earth’s space presence was their rudimentary crew capsule. Earth’s space forces had fallen and the planet was kneeling at the feet of the surviving alien fleet with the Sword of Damocles hanging over her in the form of 375 Nemesis.

  The Aliens had nudged the ten-kilometre-wide asteroid, named 375 Nemesis, onto a collision course with Earth. In a little under a year’s time, a cataclysm of the type that had claimed the dinosaurs would happen again if nothing was done to stop it. With nearly all of humanity’s space assets destroyed, now only the Aliens could divert the deadly space rock. And their price for sparing Earth was extortionate. They wanted nothing less than total capitulation, including a complete human evacuation of the Tropics – the region of Earth everyone assumed they wanted as lebensraum. They demanded a vassal Earth, waiting at their mercy, or so it seemed. Powell, along with the rest of Earth’s leaders, felt powerless to deny them their way. The President and his nascent government-in-exile were relying on their enemy’s enemy being their friend. They’d dropped into the unknown when they had made the FTL jump from a hidden bunker on Earth. They’d put their lives and the future hopes of the human race in the hands of the mysterious beings that they soon hoped to meet.

  Only ten-millimetres of aluminium-lithium alloy sustained them from the harshness of space. As they drifted around the rust-red moon, Exelon, they were as a mere cork caught in a whirlpool of gravity. A strange silence had fallen over them since they arrived a few minutes ago. The five men and one woman sat there, facing each other in a circular arrangement. Spots of voluminous pale green light from Demeter slid over the internal surfaces as the capsule continued its lazy precession. No one spoke. They were transfixed on the alien vistas outside. Powell observed his Secretary of Defence, Diego Romero. He looked uncharacteristically skittish, as he turned his head from porthole to porthole trying to make sense of their new reality. Powell looked to the right of Romero’s head and saw the curved horizon of the swirling green gas giant in the porthole. Next to Romero sat a tall, slim, mid-thirtyish woman with strawberry blonde hair. Dr. Christina Frewer was Deputy Science Chief at the now-destroyed WGA – Western Global Alliance – headquarters in Seattle. The Alien destroyers had made short work of the sprawling complex, her former workplace. On Romero’s left was his direct report, General Fred McIver, chief of what was the WGA Space Force. His forces fought a valiant battle, but they were like a lace curtain in the path of the bullet that was the Alien onslaught.

  The Aliens had somehow had a thorough and comprehensive target list. The particle beams that had flashed relentlessly from their fleet devastated almost all command and control assets, as well as most military and space-related facilities. Powell considered McIver. He looked much older than he had just two days ago when he’d arrived at the White House for talks on the Alien threat. A general without an army to lead was what he’d been reduced to. But his military know-how would be vital in the coming days, weeks, and, dare-say-it, years. Flanking Powell on both sides were his Secret Service agents, Bill Wilke and Jake Sorensen. The towering hulk, Wilke, was an able martial artist and stood at six feet eight inches. His strong jaw and brow only accentuated his menacing form. His neatly trimmed goatee and arm-tats hinted of an unorthodox protector who’d push the margins of protocol to keep his charge safe. A flash of lightning from a super-storm brewing on the green gas giant momentarily lit up his face before Powell’s head turned to the left, where Sorensen, a former Navy SEAL and veteran of too many missions to remember, sat seemingly unmoved.

  The short, stocky man’s blonde hair and face, that was younger than his thirty-six years, belied his experience. The places he’d been and the things he’d seen in some of the world’s worst war zones were truly shocking. Sorensen was good at compartmentalisation, and what he’d survived had made him strong in spirit and as tough as they came. As Powell exchanged glances with his bodyguards, they all knew their fate was in the hands of the alien attacker’s enemies, and the irony was not lost on any of them. These were the beings of Exelon. They described themselves in one of their few messages to the NSA as ‘Outcasts’. As the capsule completed another of its slow revolutions, Powell once again detected the changing colour outside, as the rocky, rusty-coloured Exelon drifted back into view.

  The thin, translucent atmosphere with wispy ribbons of cloud were like delicate paint strokes over its rarefied skies. A plume of darker gas trailed from the glowing tips of a cluster of volcanoes near the equator. The poles were covered in ice, encouraged by the lack of warmth and a minimal atmospheric blanket. Mountains, valleys, craters and plains dominated the surface. There was no vegetation or oceans. Once again, Powell could make out the distant lights of a city far below. But this time there was something else. A speck heading straight for them. Powell squinted, trying to increase his visual acuity. Yes, it was definitely growing in size and maintaining an intercept course.

  General Fred McIver looked down at his stopwatch and broke the silence. “We’re five minutes over the deadline, sir,” he said looking at Powell stoically.

  “Looks like the good guys are coming to get us – I can see something approaching from below,” replied Powell, his sight firmly fixed on the approaching Outcast craft. He could now discern the faint bluish glow from the periphery of its engine nozzles.

  “Well let’s hope they find us before our enemies do. We’ve already exceeded the window they advised,” replied McIver.

  “Nothing much we can do about it, so better just say our prayers and sit tight,” said Romero.

  Powell realised how his muscles had unconsciously tensed up in his neck and shoulders. He tried to relax, and his head once again returned to his headrest. He watched a pen float loose from the breast pocket of Romero’s blue jumpsuit. It floated slowly away without him noticing the itinerant article. Powell let out a breath and started thinking. What did they actually know about their prospective hosts? If it wasn't for the fact that Earth’s eleven billion people were being held hostage they would have never taken such a risk as they were taking. The President of the United States was one of the most protected men in the world and now he sat vulnerable, with no real protection, fifteen light years from his home planet. However, Captain Yusuf Kaya and the NSA S-3 Division had done it; they’d managed to work out that the Outcasts were a different faction to the Alien aggressors. Transmissions received by the Santa Maria and Pinta probes had confirmed it and given the moon, Exelon, as the Outcasts’ stronghold. They’d sent the Entangled Quantum Particle transceiver – EQP – to Exelon orbit via an FTL gate, as well as a first contact package that had taught the Outcasts basic Englis
h. After that, they’d made a series of, what Powell thought of as, the ultimate long-distance calls.

  The EQP was a device they used to instantaneously alter subatomic particles located in the counterpart transceiver. Be it on the other side of the world, or the other side of the known universe, it really didn’t matter to entangled particles. Operationally, this meant they could send secure, uninterceptable messages across the vastness of space in an instant. An EQP transceiver was one of three things they’d stowed in the capsule; its counterpart sat in the bunker from where the capsule had jumped. The other two things they’d brought with them were the notebook computer and the gift.

  Powell was suddenly dragged out of his thoughts by the flashes of all-too-familiar shafts of weapon fire outside. A hail of plasma bolts rose from the city below on their high-speed journey towards an unseen enemy.

  “Looks like we’ve got company,” exclaimed McIver urgently, as Christina turned towards him, fear written all over her face.

  The approaching Outcast craft jinked and weaved as it sought to avoid the rays of death being directed towards it. Thankfully for them, most of the enemy fire seemed to be directed towards the city below. Powell started thinking that maybe their capsule was simply too small to register on the enemy radar, that was no doubt sweeping orbit for prey.

  Then, as if from nowhere, a fleet numbering dozens of arrow-shaped fighters swept across Powell’s line of sight from porthole to porthole, almost in the blink of an eye.

  “Here comes the cavalry,” smiled a relieved Powell, as the first signs of plasma erupted from the Outcast flight’s number.

  There was the flash of a fireball outside and its orange light lit up the capsule. Two seconds later the pattering of shrapnel began to impact the capsule’s flimsy skin. The wave of strikes grew to the sound of hail on a tin roof as the humans’ scared gazes focused on the left side of Powell’s viewpoint where the impacts seemed to be worst. Then it happened. Something that used to be a fighter craft penetrated the capsule’s skin, leaving a ragged, bullet-sized hole for them all to see. Diametrically opposite the entry hole, a fragment of metal the size of a pea was embedded in the wall. Then the sound of metal hail stopped, only to be replaced by a high-pitched hissing as their small, but vital, air supply started evacuating into space. Even with everything else that was going on, Powell noticed Romero’s escaped pen’s subtle change of trajectory. As the pen floated its way towards the hole it started to represent a counter in Powell’s mind – a count-down to their impending suffocation. Then it occurred him, so he turned to Sorensen, who was closest to the breach.

  “Sorensen, see if you can reach the hole and plug it somehow,” said Powell as he started patting down his jumpsuit pockets. Nothing. “Guys, check if you’ve got anything that can plug the breach.”

  “Here,” replied Romero, “try this.” He quickly passed a credit card from the wallet he’d taken with him, to McIver who, in turn, gave it to Sorensen. He held it in two hands to place it carefully over the hole, centring it as he resisted the force of the high velocity airflow. The card was sucked into place. The centre bulged and the edges lifted proud of the wall by a couple of millimetres, but it held firm. To their relief, the hissing sound stopped.

  Powell smiled, and with a little chuckle asked Romero, “Hey Diego, just one question: why did you think they’d take all major credits cards on Exelon? Why’d you take your bill-fold?”

  This brought some humour to all but the frightened face of Dr. Christina Frewer, who only managed a tight smile.

  “Just habit, I guess,” said Romero, laughing a little.

  Their mood lifted even further as the raking enemy particle rays seemed to dissipate then stop completely. The Outcast shuttle was now clear in detail and would only be minutes away from the rendezvous with their capsule.

  “I guess we now know why there was a deadline,” explained McIver. “How they knew the timing is another matter…”

  The white, dome-fronted shuttle manoeuvred behind the tiny capsule like a whale shark gliding through the crystal clear waters of Earth’s tropics. Like the enormous fish, the shuttle had a tail fin and tapered in breadth towards the aft. A pair of stubby delta wings protruded from halfway along its body. The mouth of the Outcast shuttle eased downwards, opening as it edged forwards to swallow the container of human life.

  A well-lit cargo bay greeted Powell’s eyes as he looked out of the porthole towards either their rescuers, or their captors. For all he knew this could be a trap to isolate Earth’s most powerful leader without having to bother invading America to find him. Powell mused the idea that they could have done this to other world leaders; such was the fragmentation and jamming of communications on Earth now. He hadn’t felt this vulnerable and powerless since childhood, but wondered if he was just being paranoid. Only worry about what you can change came one of his late father’s sayings in his head.

  As the shuttle consumed the capsule, it became clear to Powell, and the other humans, that the sports-hall-sized space was completely empty aside from them. They stopped moving relative to the cargo bay walls as the great door started rising back up into the closed position. The last strip of black space disappeared when the door sealed the six humans inside the belly of the beast. The floor rose to within a metre of the capsule’s base, whereupon an array of thin stalks grew up to adhere to its underside. They were eased to a gentle landing on the orbiting craft.

  Christina breathed out a breath she’d not noticed she’d been holding for so long. The tense glances were replaced by a driving desire to see outside and get a preview of what was soon to happen. The bright, white space reminded her of a giant clean room. The gentle vibration of the shuttle’s engines could now be felt through their seats since they were in physical contact with the cargo bay floor.

  “What happens now?” asked Romero to no one in particular.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, Diego,” replied Powell.

  “Can you hear that?” asked the Secret Service man-mountain, Wilke.

  “They’re re-pressurising the cargo bay, Bill – filling it with air,” explained General McIver.

  “Yeah, right...I knew that,” grinned Wilke.

  “I sure wish they’d hurry up, I’m starting to get claustrophobic in here,” moaned Christina, looking around the inside of the capsule, underlining her point about its cramped confines.

  The air became misty, as if a fog had been pumped into the hangar. It gradually cleared as the airflow continued. The sound of flowing atmosphere abruptly stopped, and no more than a few seconds later, a pair of doors at the back of the bay slid open revealing a posse of armed Outcast soldiers. They were humanoid and Powell guessed about six feet tall; although it was hard to tell with only unknown visual references around them. They wore helmets with darkened full-face visors and matte-black, hard-shelled suits of armour. Each of the eight Outcasts carried some sort of bulky looking assault rifle with a barrel as wide as a coffee mug trained towards the capsule. It reminded Powell that their hosts were taking a risk too, and had already lost at least one fighter protecting them during the enemy raid. Nevertheless, that still left the question of whether they were high-value captives or allies.

  The Outcast squad approached, fanning out to surround the capsule. The double doors rapidly slid closed behind them. Their steps were slightly laboured and jerky due to the adhesive soles on their boots that prevented them from floating off in zero-g. The member closest to the entrance approached the capsule hatch and looked through the porthole. He stood and looked at each human in turn for half a minute a piece.

  “Why’s he staring at us for so long?” asked Christina.

  “Who knows? Maybe that’s normal for them. This is a whole different culture, Christina,” replied ex-SEAL, Sorensen. “Adapting to the cultural differences on Earth is hard enough – and they’re the same species! Thumbs up in Iran...bad idea. Touch someone’s head in Southeast Asia...another insult.”

  “The most famous faux-pa
s was committed by someone that held your office, Stephen,” said Romero.

  “Ah yes, when Richard Nixon flicked off the whole of Brazil by waving the ‘okay’ sign from the steps of Air Force One,” laughed Powell. “It’s a good point, Jake, and one we’d all do well to remember. I’ll do the talking...or communicating, unless you’re asked a direct question. Hell, we don't even know for sure how we’ll communicate. But they clearly know some English, so hopefully they’ve learned to speak it. I sure as hell don’t know how to speak their language!”

  The inspecting Outcast soldier shifted to look into each porthole in turn, inspecting every square inch of the inside of the capsule that he could see. Meanwhile, three more soldiers had joined him, one looking inside and the other two clambering all over the capsule. It occurred to General McIver that they definitely had some sort of sticky pads on their boots and gloves, similar to the Gecko Pads developed on Earth, which employed the same Van Der Waals forces that geckos use. One had some sort of wand-like detector that he waved over the capsule. After a twenty-minute inspection, three of the soldiers stood off once again, weapons redrawn and trained on the hatch. The soldier remaining by the hatch took a step back and made a repeated pulling motion away from the hatch as an instruction to the human occupants inside.

  “I guess they're inviting us to step out. Here, let me do the honours,” said Powell, unclipping his harness. He grabbed onto the overhead handrail and floated himself towards the hatch, then unlocked it. He landed his legs on the floor, either side of the hatch, and pushed. Then he pushed with all his strength, finally overcoming the slightly positive external pressure. A gentle puff of hot, humid air flushed into the capsule reminding Powell of his state visit to Indonesia, as he’d emerged from the air conditioned space of Air Force One. He emerged from the hatch and took a breath of the warm air. He felt immediately invigorated as effects of the twenty-seven percent oxygen entered his brain. The soldiers waited.