by David Buck
***
Garendestat was feeling very tired and disorientated, but a lot better after getting the assistance of the humans to stand up. He was still dressed in the bottom half off his space suit as he found a suitable location to lean against and rest. The cream the human medical team had applied seemed to work wonders with his glimmer infections. The broken arm had then been strapped with two long splints and now hung suspended from a sling around his neck.
The Trader looked around as he watched the ship crew at work, he recognised an efficient crew when he saw one, and these humans were certainly efficient. Garendestat had learned several human words by pointing and asking, indeed his race was among the best in the galaxy in learning languages. However he did not know the motives of the humans at this stage. In the distance he could see a sneak ship, and as Steve turned to watch the Trader again, he pointed to himself and the sneak ship intoning another new word he had learnt.
‘Ship, Steve, Ship.’
Steve shook his head and pointed around the side of the ship and for Garendestat to take a look. Garendestat shuffled over, found something else to lean against, and fought to keep calm as he realised what the humans were doing. For the human ship was now circling the research rig filled with the remaining live Voorde drones.
Garendestat felt quickly down the side of his right leg, and discovered that his suit blaster was still intact inside a large suit pocket. He knew he would only get a few shots off at a distance and he would not be given the opportunity to calibrate his weapon. The Trader remembered that he had at least one view finder in a sealed pocket on his left suit leg as he carefully left the blaster within the sealed compartment on the side of his right suit leg. He remembered that the compartments had emergency override buttons in case a Trader needed to open them without the chest computer.
Garendestat opened the first compartment to his suit and he could see three humans watching him closely. He then noticed that they had viewing devices similar to the view finder and were pointing the devices at him and at the research rig they were approaching.
‘Recording devices of some kind.’ he observed to himself.
Fortunately the first view finder he retrieved from the suit pocket was still fully functional, and he quickly made several snapshots of the crew, before he wandered further over to the rear of the ship. Casually Garendestat leaned against a massive orange post with yellow and black stripes, and a human sign in red letters displayed prominently. Steve immediately came over and pointed to the sign.
‘Danger, Garendestat, Danger.’
As Steve pointed at the post he made breaking motions with his hands, and Garendestat soon picked up that the area was of some risk, and he moved back to stand alongside Steve. Within minutes the ship had slowed and began turning the back of the ship to face the research rig. The massive orange post began to move along a track and Garendestat identified it as a large lifting crane. The humans began to lower a boat over the side, and were obviously going to attach a heavy cable to the research rig so they could lift the drifting research rig onboard.
Garendestat used his view finder to take detailed readings of the research rig for several seconds with the human ship now stationary. He then programmed the view finder to down load the firing solution via wireless into his blaster. He had told the view finder to set the blaster to full armour piercing before replacing the view finder in the clip in his left suit leg pocket. The view finder routed the download instructions to the blaster and gave the requested beep of completion.
As the nearby humans looked across at the noise, Garendestat carefully took out the view finder again and called up an earlier image of one of the crew. He locked the view finder keypad and he handed the device to one of the three watching humans. Within a few seconds the other two humans, and at least of two of the regular crew were peering into the Trader device at the picture.
‘Something to remember about humans…’
He thought, as he ensured that he had not moved too far, and he had a clear line of sight.
Garendestat took a step from the rail and pressed the release button on his right suit pocket. As he dropped into a firing crouch he drew the blaster from the pocket in a fluid move his father would be proud of. He released a volley of accurate full charge shots from the blaster at the research rig nearby.
The series of powerful blaster shots struck the shielded rig, and did little damage to the rig itself apart from holing one of the portholes. However the floating collar was never designed for such an attack and promptly ripped in several places. The research rig immediately began to settle lower in the water. The humans responded in a series of yells and screams, and several of them dived on him from all directions.
Garendestat had the presence of mind to drop the now hot blaster on the deck as they knocked him over. Steve turned from seeing weapon fire strike the research rig to then witness Garendestat dropping the blaster and being driven down to the deck by his crew. He raced over and called out to his crew.
‘Stand down, stand aside. Now help Garendestat stand up again.’
As he reached the group of prone bodies, Samantha and Rebecca quickly came over to his side. Steve went over to pick up the heavy alien weapon by the grip and now stood well back from Garendestat. With the alien now standing Steve turned to the rapidly sinking rig, pointed at it, and exclaimed.
‘Why? Garendestat Why?’
Garendestat suppressed a grimace from the renewed pain in his injured left arm, and in turn pointed at the now disappearing research rig with his good arm.
‘Steve Danger! Steve Danger!’
As he regained his balance and the humans released their holds on him, Garendestat took his bad arm from his sling with a real effort and made the breaking motion Steve made earlier. He repeated as he pointed at Steve, himself, the ship, and the crew.
‘Steve Danger! Steve Danger!’
Steve turned ashen faced and regarded Samantha and Rebecca as they looked at Garendestat.
‘He really is trying to tell us something, and I hope it does not have anything to do with another pandemic.’
The three humans now silently regarded the now quiet Garendestat, who had gone back to observing the sneak ship on the horizon.
***
Chapter 3
Dan hurried onto the now partly covered rear deck of the Aurora Discovery towards Steve, Samantha and Rebecca. He had just finished two satellite phone conversations, one with Commander Walker on HMAS Sydney, and another with the Department of Fisheries in Geraldton.
He had been checked the status of the ship before he had heard the strange weapons fire from the rear of the ship. Dan had then rushed to a bridge wing just in time to see the alien sled rig start sinking. The weapons fire had obviously shredded the floating collar and the rig had quickly sunk into deep water.
‘Steve was that a weapon used on the rig?’
Dan noted that Steve now held a large hand gun of unknown design.
Steve gave the weapon, still warm to touch, to Dan and offered an exasperated reply.
‘Our guest slashed the flotation collar on that object with some well placed shots from his fancy hand gun. I don’t think I could have done it better or quicker with any of our handheld weapons.’
Dan looked over the weapon critically.
‘Steve, I am no weapons specialist, but this looks like an energy weapon of some type.’
Steve resumed custody of the handgun, and looked over at Garendestat as he continued to watch the space ship on the northern horizon.
‘It was pretty fancy gun control for a hand weapon at over one hundred meters shooting from a ship. Garendestat keeps telling us the sled rig was dangerous, so perhaps it is better that we did not bring it aboard.’
Dan considered that news for a moment and continued again.
‘Someone can look into the sunken rig later. Now I spoke with Commander Walker on HMAS Sydney and confirmed that we have a real alien now on our ship. She is to the east of us an
d is not moving any closer to the Abrolhos Islands. The commander wants us to wait here for instructions while she speaks to the authorities further.’
Steve looked over to Samantha and Rebecca to ask them a question.
‘Well he is certainly moving around the ship now. Do you think he is in any medical danger at the moment?’
The two ladies looked at each other briefly before Samantha replied.
‘Steve we really do not know the answer to that question. Garendestat could have been infected with a pathogen that takes several hours or days even to appear.’
Steve thought for a moment before he stated his real concern.
‘So we stay here for instructions, hoping our friend here does not die in the meantime.’
Dan nodded in agreement as he replied.
‘Yes, I can see the problem and it would not look good after the US attack. Also Commander Walker informed me that one of our subs turned away a US sub north of the Abrolhos.’
Dan then went into some detail to an astonished Steve about the likelihood that US submarine would have fired nuclear tipped cruise missiles. Garendestat was still feeling unwell, despite the salve on his glimmer tattoos, as he continued to watch the sneak ship. He had to find something to signal the sneak ship with, but his suit radio was in fragments. As he considered his options a crew member walked past speaking on a radio, and the Trader further expanded his choices.
Garendestat looked over again at the now animated humans, as Steve made a loud noise, obviously in anger, and replied vigorously to a male human that Garendestat had seen briefly earlier. Steve had experienced enough for the day and let fly.
‘Those arrogant Americans and their high-handedness, we would have a number of Australians around these islands. Those yanks are lately really are a law unto themselves, and I hope our Prime Minister rips into them over what they tried to do.’
Dan looked at Steve in agreement, as did Samantha and Rebecca. The two ladies had given starts of alarm about the US submarine, even as Steve had exploded, before Dan again continued.
‘Well I am really annoyed about it too and even our distance here away from the islands probably would not have been far enough. Now the Department of Fisheries has evacuated the Abrolhos group, with several crayfish boats, private boats and charter vessels being taken in a convoy back to Geraldton. A few blokes protested but some off duty policemen on a charter boat over-ruled them and they all left.’
Steve gave a sigh of relief as he considered the second phone conversation Dan had managed.
‘Well at least we lower the possible body count around here.’
Steve offered, and looking over to Garendestat he continued.
‘Come over and meet Garendestat. We have to think carefully about what we do next.’
The two men moved over to Garendestat and Dan introduced himself. Garendestat and the two men then attempted a patient rudimentary conversation, but the Trader lieutenant kept looking from time to time back north to the distant sneak ship.
***
Captain Narindestat viewed the details of the ship refuel and repair reports. The whole process was taking rather longer than he would have liked, and the salt levels in the seawater continued to delay the production of fuel. The good news from the sneak ships was that several small boats with humans had recently fled the island group for the mainland. Also he had been advised that the research rig had suddenly sunk in deep water before sneak ship nine could be sent.
‘Two less potential problems to worry about…’
The captain decided as he looked up engineering references relating to water purification. Perhaps they could distill the water before they began the fuel production process and that should hopefully deal with the salts problem. Narindestat then went through his cargo manifest, and they did have large rolls of semi-permeable membrane and lengths of pipes. He called up the details of one of his auxiliary holds and noted the pipe feed details, before he made a call to Halbindestat.
‘Bring yourself and two of your teams with pipe fitting tools to sub hold four. I think I can speed up the fuel production process. We can test the method onboard the ship and move it onto the island later for more room.’
Within minutes Halbindestat and his two teams met up with the captain at the sub hold. Narindestat took the chief engineer aside, and after a brief discussion, and a slightly longer session with some digital pads, Halbindestat started shouting orders and handing out the same digital pads.
‘You two to the hold and get this roll of membrane I have in engineering supplies. Pilot Marenkestat, I want my best pipe connection set from my work bench. Also pilot thank you for helping and do not be late for your regular duties. As for the rest of you, I want those spare frames from our starboard storage section brought around, and yes we will need to be using a waldo or two to do that.’
The engineering team scattered as the captain and the chief engineer opened the hold door. The two Traders carefully checked through the hold in the unlikely event that Voorde still survived on the Trader ship. Halbindestat pointed to a blackened husk at one rear corner of the hold.
‘Captain, it looks like the biology of this planet does not agree with the Voorde much.’
The captain suppressed a grimace at the smell and replied.
‘Chief, I can honestly say that the biology of this planet does not agree with us either.’
The captain detailed a cleanup party for the Voorde remains, which were removed just as several engineers returned and streamed into the hold. Satisfied that the task was well in hand, Captain Narindestat returned to the bridge. As he walked on the bridge, Emeria was awaiting his return.
‘Captain, There has been a further outbreak of illness amongst the crew, and it could get nasty.’
Captain Narindestat listened with rising alarm as the medical officer presented her findings from caring for the sick crew as they fought off yet another set of infections. Several of the crew had developed painful red spots after they had been in direct contact with sea water.
***
Gindane stood on the bridge of her research ship and felt frustration. Her ship had taken up position in a trailing orbit behind the planet Mars, as her crew once again started to monitor the humans of Earth. She noted with interest that ten years after the pandemic, that the Earth’s total populations count was just over half of what it had been previously. Gindane felt a real sense of sadness, and her bridge crew was subdued, as they continued to monitor for whatever information they could find out about Earth. One of the researchers was off in the engineering section waiting to test a communications laser he wanted to fire into the atmosphere. Gindane noted the stated aims of the researcher as he fired the laser into the atmosphere of Earth over their largest ocean. Within moments the researcher had presented his findings.
‘Research commander, can you please check over this for me, for as I suspected we would have a real problem.’
Gindane looked over the data and checked the output against the stated aims of the report, before uttering an oath of consternation. The test results indicated that the atmosphere was slightly opaque to their technology, and that included several types of communications lasers and all the active scanning technology. The data also indicated that any active scanning technology used by the galactic races would also be thwarted by the planet’s oceans due to same reasons. Gindane again checked the test results and then voiced a complaint.
‘So even if we were allowed to use active scans here the scans would not see anything in detail in the oceans.’
She paused and looked at additional reports coming into her command console before offering an aside.
‘Well I know of no suppression field large enough to hide a sneak ship, let alone their main ship. So unless the Traders are underwater we will not have a problem then will we?’
The researchers on the bridge wryly noted their commander’s wit with polite nods of agreement and continued on with their duties.
***
> The cordless phone tightened in the grip of Ian Ridge, and he surveyed the dark skin on the back of his hand, as he spoke with the Premier of Western Australia, James Southall.
‘Well James, we are doing everything we can on this matter. Yes I understand your anger at the actions of the US forces in the area. But I have spoken to the US president in strong terms about these matters and they should not occur again.’
Ian paused for several minutes as the WA premier outlaid all his additional concerns that he had about the Abrolhos Islands, before Ian again spoke to reassure the Premier.
‘Actually James, I agree with you on most of those points. I understand one of your agencies ordered people to leave the islands and that is a good move. But now we have to stop people, especially the media, from coming out to the islands.’
Ian listened as he got agreement from the premier before he continued again.
‘James, I will shortly declare the Abrolhos Islands a quarantine zone under combined police and military control. Now we will increase our military control by having our troops assisted by a US marine force that came to help us two days ago. We have a situation out there as a former naval officer is involved with his auxiliary vessel, and he will be allowed full access to the islands under federal authority.’
The premier made a few enquiries about what had actually occurred on the islands. Ian was aware of stunned silence on the other end of the line, as James took in all the information as Ian revealed what he knew. The two men again agreed on the quarantine being issued before ending the phone call.
Ian now considered the latest reports from the Abrolhos Island and sat back for a moment or two to think carefully. The mass media really had gone into a flurry over the momentous news, and the rooms of several ministers had crowds around their large televisions. On one media report he noted with approval that several boats had left the islands after the WA Department of Fisheries told them to leave. The two frigates still patrolled the southern and eastern approaches to the islands, and Steve Greene’s auxiliary vessel was still to the south west.
