Carinae Sector: 01 - Traders' Scourge - Part 2 - Maveen Offer

by David Buck

  ‘Emeria I am so glad to see you again too. I am doing well though I could do with a painkiller please for my arm.’

  Emeria quickly fetched a suitable painkiller and glass of water for Garendestat and brought over a portable scanner to check his medical condition for herself. Garendestat paid her the courtesy of not interrupting her as she went about her job. After checking the broken arm with a larger scanner to be sure, Emeria stated her own opinion on his condition.

  ‘Garendestat, the humans have done a reasonable job on treating your arm. You will need to keep it supported for another fortnight and then wear an arm brace for two months in case you lift anything heavy.’

  Emeria looked closely at both the healing glimmer tattoo and the red spots on Garendestat with real concern. She noted that they appeared to be healing, and with relief she spoke again.

  ‘The glimmer infection is not usually fatal in itself, but the red spot can be very nasty and you have a more red spot sores than any other crew members. So how did the humans treat you for this infection?’

  Garendestat quickly informed Emeria about the various medicines the humans had used on him, and the medical officer gave him a stern look.

  ‘You are lucky to be alive letting them treat you Garendestat, what if they had poisoned you? However I now need the assistance of these humans and their medicines, as it appears the red spot treatment of theirs is probably superior to our own treatment.’

  Garendestat quickly led Emeria back through the ship to the rear loading ramp. As he spoke about his time amongst the humans, he mentioned the food experience last night as well.

  ‘Just think Emeria, there is a wide range of different foods the humans have that we can eat. Just think of the trade possibilities.’

  Emeria stopped for a moment and gave him another stern look.

  ‘So if you are not poisoning yourself with human medicine you are attempting to do the same with human food? A typical male, you are always thinking with your stomach.’

  The medical officer then took the lead for the walk down the ramp and left Garendestat floundering as he pondered a suitable reply. He was really concerned that Emeria was a little short with him, even if she was obviously glad to see him, as he slowly followed her down the ramp. Captain Narindestat saw Emeria lead Garendestat down the rear ramp to the beach and noted his son’s pinched expression with a practiced eye. He knew too well the duress a younger Trader male could go through in relations with female crew members, especially their intended brides. And that was all before the loss of the glimmer tattoos was taken into account. The captain considered that the next few months of crew relationships onboard the Illuria would be very interesting to say the least.

  ***

  The small ship activated the shields surrounding the now healed hull, and dislodged the ice and snow, that then tumbled slowly away in the sparse atmosphere.

  ‘So far so good…’

  The son decided, as his body had managed to be repair itself over the last few years he had been asleep. He was aware he was well hidden with his father in a deep crater on a small and nameless ice planet. The drives and power supply appeared also to be stable, and he still felt well as he ran further tests on both sets of components.

  Once again the son went through in his mind the unfortunate recent chain of events. After all the years of careful searching, that now their hidden existence would have changed so radically from one fraught encounter with a Tilmud frigate squadron. He now waited patiently after his tests as his nearby father roused himself to speak to him.

  ‘So those shields I gave you are good, but you need to avoid any Tilmud frigates at all costs. You will still be late for the meeting with our old friends. Hopefully you will be able to make contact with them to start the search together.’

  The son considered the frail state of his father evident through his low powered passive scans. His father would heal in time, but the ancient academic would have another large set of scars to tell the tale of their existence in a hostile galaxy. The son was well aware that his father had taken the brunt of the earlier attack in an attempt to protect his life.

  ‘Father, you are still unwell and weak, and I should stay with you until we both can leave together. Surely the females we seek can wait years longer for us to find them after so long?’

  His father paused before replying in what the son felt was an artificially confident manner.

  ‘You could not now protect me anyway if we are discovered Altarebe. A squadron of Tilmud frigates is too much for both of us standard males. By comparison, just one of our females would have decimated that squadron with her speed and fire power. Now you must survive and at all costs, as the code in your body allows you a great future. You are rare in an endangered race Altarebe, as you know.’

  Altarebe considered the subtle differences in the design of his body compared to his father with mixed emotions. He was still an adolescent, but he already slightly larger than his father, he had more gun mount points on his hull, he was faster in combat, he cloaked faster, he healed damage quicker, and could power more shields.

  Most importantly, he had the unclosed growth fissures in his hull that would later allow him to grow into a far stronger and deadlier form. As he considered this his father spoke again.

  ‘Now I am sorry you had to set aside your academic future. But the eternal servants were quite adamant about the intelligence they had recovered so long ago. The queen must be on a world not far from their original mission. I will be here for many years to further repair my hull, so take your time getting back.’

  After a brief but heart wrenching farewell, Altarebe took leave of his father, cloaked and then cautiously made his way to the edge of the star system. He verified the charge in the hyper drive and made the hyper jump to another star system further over towards their original destination.

  His father quietly watched him leave, critically evaluated the slow regeneration inside his own hull, and after several minutes of reflection went back to sleep. He had confidence in his son, and he was sure Altarebe would find away to complete their task. He knew also that only his son could do what was finally required.

  ***

  Steve looked over the massive grey hull of the Trader ship looming over him, and then across to the other smaller ships he could see landed nearby on the small island. The giant space ship was shaped as a massive flying wing, and he could see important details on the rear of the hull from were he stood. In front and to the right of him, he could see a large horizontal line that must be the main hold doors, and even further right he could see three massive engine nozzles along the right wing.

  Steve could see at regular intervals along the trailing edge of the ship, a series of smaller gimbals or swivel mounted rockets that must be the maneuvering thrusters. A series of small silver domes was embedded at regular intervals in the wing surface, and the light seemed to vanish directly over them. Steve was not sure what they could be, but he speculated that they could possibly be the strange shield technology that the Traders used throughout their ships.

  A quick glance to the left verified the same structures on the other wing, and Steve estimated the wing span at five hundred meters. He watched approvingly as Dan turned to follow Steve’s gaze, and take a detailed series of videos of the underneath of the Trader ship. For their part the Traders seemed entirely without concern of the human’s interest and curiosity in the crew and their ship.

  Steve looked at the three large pylons that were spaced under the right wing and he wondered again what role they performed, until he looked around again and picked out the matching longitudinal groove on the side of a smaller ship. Obviously the smaller ships were capable of being docked onto the larger ship if required. Captain Narindestat looked around after speaking with Garendestat, who had earlier returned with a female Trader and now spoke to Steve.

  ‘You are impressed with the Illuria no doubt? She is one of the newest and strongest main ships in our fleets. I am hopeful we c
an repair and refuel her shortly and leave your planet. We will then dock with our hyper drive module and leave your system.’

  Steve took in the implied message for a moment, found he need to verify an opinion he was forming, and then he replied.

  ‘So you have several of these ships, and their hyper drive modules, and even more of the smaller ships?’

  Captain Narindestat was no fool, and the human was obviously qualifying the threat potential of the Traders. The captain was measured in his reply as he was still concerned about retaining the Illuria, not to mention his freedom and that of all his crew.

  ‘Steve we live in remote star bases far from your world and the centre of the galaxy. We are known as an independent race, not strictly bound by galactic law, though we are restrained by key edicts. We are free to trade in the outer areas of the galaxy and have done so for thousands of years. Yes we have more large ships, but they are far from this world at this stage. All our smaller ships, our sneak ships as we call them, will be with their main ships as well.’

  Steve turned to look back at the others of his party to see how they were fairing. Dan still filmed all he could of the main ship and these sneak ships, and of course the bemused Traders. Samantha and Rebecca were engaged in a conversation with Garendestat and the female Trader that Steve had noticed earlier. As he walked over, Garendestat gently touched the female Trader on her arm, and she turned as he spoke.

  ‘Emeria, this is Steve, he is the one who saved me. Steve is the captain of the small ship we see over there to the east of us.’

  Emeria turned to regard Steve and gave a smile with a polite nod.

  ‘Thank you for saving our Garendestat. The story of his survival has inspired the whole crew for we have lost several others to infection and illness.’

  For some reason Garendestat gave Emeria almost a warning look, but Steve disregarded that observation for the moment as now Samantha spoke.

  ‘Well we can possibly help you with medicines and food if required. But our biology is different and we have to be careful with our assistance.’

  Emeria gave Samantha another polite nod and smile as she replied.

  ‘I still struggle with your language, but I am thankful for your assistance. We do not have time to test everything and all we can do is to quickly build on what we have learnt. I will look at what you have brought and see if it can help us.’

  Samantha led Rebecca and Emeria over to a bench underneath the morning shadow of the great ship. Steve and Garendestat then turned and walked back to the waiting Captain Narindestat. Dan was quietly filming away again, and this time he was paying more attention to the three smaller black ships that rested in the water just off the beach, as well as the damaged hulls of two of their sneak ships. Steve pointed to the damaged ships and asked a question of the Trader captain.

  ‘Are these two ships the ones damaged by our war fleet you encountered three days ago?’

  Captain Narindestat looked at the human carefully as he considered his reply, for the advice and directions from the Maveen probe had been specific.

  ‘Yes they are Steve. The first ship is sneak ship four and it collided with one of the American submarines as we attempted to flee. The second ship is sneak ship two, and it was stuck down by a heavy weapon that managed to defeat our shielding technology. All this happened before our six friends came to our aid and disabled the attacking American fleet.’

  Steve thought about this for several minutes as he continued to study the damaged ships, and then the smaller three black ships that rested silently in the water next to the island.

  ***

  Omerio was still distantly tailing the three Tilmud ships. The three ships would leave a star system and he would race to any planet they had been even been nearby to scan for any further traces of their work. On two additional occasions he had found these traces, and had launched further atmospheric drones down to the two planets involved to discover the truth. He was also concerned about his rapidly depleting stock of drones, as he was travelling in remote space. The probes had found further large vials on the surface of both worlds, and Omerio had resorted to launching two new sets of quarantine drones.

  ‘At this rate any colonization efforts in this area of space is doomed for centuries.’

  Omerio thought to himself as he charted yet another drive jump point into the navigation computer.

  At the moment the young Barus trader had two key questions about the Tilmud he trailed.

  ‘Why are the Tilmud breaking galactic law in such a callous manner? And what do they seek to accomplish with this covert operation?’

  Omerio somberly continued to evaluate the data and plan his next hyper drive jump destination. To review all the information, he automatically set the navigation view on the computer to show several star systems he had already visited. The screen also was showing his current system, and the likely destination systems of the three Tilmud ships.

  Omerio looked at the screen for a moment and gave a start. He altered the view again to show the nearest habitable stars used by galactic races, and then swore a strong oath. It was all right in front of him, and he just needed to see enough star systems to work it out for himself. Numbly, he now worked through the views and highlighted the differing relevant sets of information. He soon found that it all fitted his new understanding of what was happening perfectly.

  Omerio feverishly completed the coordinates of the new drive jump and sat back to consider what he had just discovered. He wondered if the Vorinne second envoy would, after looking at this information, just stop at taking the head of the Tilmud fleet admiral.

  ***

  Tilmud squadron commander Tanuldesec sat back on his command couch feeling nonplussed, as he asked his nephew to repeat himself, which he did without a complaint.

  ‘Sir, a Barus light research destroyer has uncloaked in a geosynchronous or high orbit around the third planet. The ship matches the class and designation of the research ship commanded by Research Commander Gindane of the Barus Science Institute.’

  Lieutenant Giruldesec considered further information arriving into his console from the ship's sensors.

  ‘They have hailed us by tight beam laser with the standard fleet protocols, but now have gone silent.’

  Tanuldesec was almost relieved, the presence of the Barus commander here complicated his own mission, but if anything went wrong he could possibly assign the blame to the Barus commander. After all the crew of the research ship had already decimated half the population of the human planet. He also knew that his older brother, the admiral of the Tilmud fleet in this area of space, was especially aggravated by the fact that Gindane and her officers were still alive. Tanuldesec sat back and thought about the turn of events, before he vented a sharp comment or two around the bridge.

  ‘They only observe the forms of galactic etiquette and little else. They want to play a waiting game then, these sanctimonious Barus academics and their fancy research ships, so be it.’

  Tanuldesec slouched on his acceleration couch, and considered what really worried him at this stage. So if he was a Trader lieutenant, and he was in charge of a hyper drive module of cruiser strength, then in which part of the system would the cloaked module be hiding?

  ***

  Gindane sat back in her command chair and thought through her actions again. After over a day in geosynchronous orbit over Earth, the commander had ordered the cloak to be shut down and for a formal fleet greeting, but nothing else, to be sent to the Tilmud commander. She could imagine the Tilmud response to her terse observance of the formalities. But at the moment she had far greater priorities to work through and survive. She turned to the lieutenant at the communications station and issued the order she had been troubled over for hours.

  ‘Send the recorded messages of our greeting, who we are, and what we have done here previously, and of course our apology. Our last message is to inform that we will go live from sending our recordings in six hours time. Make sure that you
send down the messages to all channels and that they will receive it correctly.’

  Gindane had made the decision early on to avoid any mention of the landed Trader ship. She knew that the act of discussing the Traders would be moot unless she could get the humans to listen to her. She looked again at the map of the planet and considered further what her ship could do to discover any additional information about the Trader ship. After a quick calculation on her command console, Gindane sat up and issued a further pair of orders.

  ‘Take us further around in our high orbit and keep us stable over the position of the Trader ship. I then want the best possible images of the ship to establish their level of damage and state of repairs. I want facts and figures on the Traders as soon as possible.’

  The bridge crew set about their tasks with renewed vigour. The now visible research destroyer moved forward several thousand kilometres in the high orbit, before decelerating using short series of bursts from forward thrusters.

  On the Earth, the television broadcasts, already covering the landing of the Trader ship were interrupted, as the recorded messages from the Barus research destroyer were played again and again. Once again the world had changed, and in the political offices of many countries, the world leaders began a series of telephone conversations to each other, and to their military officers.

  ***

  Steve had moved off with the other humans to one side of the island. They all inspected a makeshift frame that Trader engineers had earlier set up with a huge water tank fed with seawater via a massive hose. From what Steve could tell, the tank in turn connected to another huge tank filled with a series of screens hung into the water. Another pipe led from the second tank to the side of the main ship.

  The material on the screens in the water was electrically charged, and a suited Trader engineer would routinely remove and replace screens that were still charged, but had turned white with salt. The whitened screens were carried down to a work bench in the shade. A second Trader engineer would remove the charge pack on the used screens and then carefully scrape the accumulated salt away. A quick scrub in a tub of salt water and the refurbished screens, with recharged power packs, were sent back to the top of the tank for eventual use again in the filtration process. Steve turned to Garendestat as he watched the whole process and asked a polite question.