Seeker of Moons
The first book of Cassidy’s Command
By Geoff Workman
© Copyright, Geoff Workman 2014
All rights reserved.
The contents of this book may not be copied or stored in any medium, electronic or otherwise without express and written permission from the author.
Dedication
This story has passed through the hands of Mary, Jim, Lesley and Jeff and without their encouragement this tale would still be just in my imagination.
Lastly, big thanks to Anne for her encouragement and help to put the words into an order which may give at least some of my reader’s pleasure.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Just Another Day
Chapter 2
Marooned on the Seven Moon
Chapter 3
Preparing for War.
Chapter 4
The War Begins
Chapter 5
Running for Home
Chapter 6
An Unwanted Mission
Chapter 7
A Force to be Reckoned With.
Chapter 8
Seeker of Moons - The Avenger
Chapter 9
Aliens Encountered
Chapter 10
Edenfall Dawn
Chapter 11
Chamtofi Express
Chapter 12
Finding the Prince
Chapter 13
Fight and Flight
Chapter 14
Exodus
Chapter 1
Just Another Day
Aboard the Universal Technologies Inc, Search and Rescue Tug 'Seeker' somewhere beyond the Faust system.
The internal launch doors slid shut with a near silent hiss and the outer door dropped down like a port-cullis to seal the fuselage. Inside the rescue launch there were seats for twenty, in five rows of four, with a centre aisle leading to the pilot’s cockpit door which was now closed. A standard rescue team consisted of a flight crew of two with seven rescue personnel, but as the ‘Seeker’ was without a full crew there were only five people taking their seats in the cabin, three men and two women.
Kyle took his favourite seat at the back and carelessly stowed his equipment in the under seat locker. There was no room for his weapons so he strapped the combo carbine and the plasmet personnel shield to the vacant seat next to him.
From the back, he could observe the others in the team and he especially liked studying Esther, who was squad leader for this mission, being the only grade 3 Staff Officer on board.
Sub-Officer Esther Fuentes felt Kyle’s eyes wander over her slim frame. She turned round to glare at him and gave a curt, “Ready to go crewman?”
Kyle was used to being put down by Esther and he now regarded it as a bit of a game, “Yes Sub, I am good to go and hopefully to return!”
“Pipe down Getaway unless you have something useful to say.”
“Yes Ma’am,” said Kyle answering to his crew familiar name, which he had been given due to his conviction for driving a stolen aero speeder.
The interchange was brought to a stop by the noise of the anti-grav unit building up and soon the voice of Ash Shapour the mission pilot could be heard running through the launch procedure as standard practice.
Kyle picked up the announcements through the comms chip located under the skin of his chin, a position unique to ex-convicts. The other team members had the traditional neck insertion chips.
“Seat restraints activated, life systems 100%, launch 60 seconds.” The Ionprop motor of the rescue shuttle whined increasingly loudly and the passengers were suddenly jolted as the small craft was catapulted off the mother ship.
Ash came back on line, “Subject ETA 15 minutes, restraints remain active and please stay relaxed as we will be closing on the subject shortly.”
Kyle slipped into a half sleep. It went through his head for the hundredth time as to what he was doing at the edge of known space, when he had such high hopes of becoming an expert in cosmic starship design, until that fatal stupid day. He was 19 and had a study day at home in preparation for his exams but the knock on his parent’s front door changed his life.
The knock belonged to Uncle Chico who was only 7 years older than Kyle. He was the so called bad apple in the family as he was always getting into trouble and had already been behind bars twice.
Kyle remembered looking past Chico and seeing this fabulous motor parked up outside the house. Surely it could not be a Titan Speeder, the latest, coolest and one of the most expensive aero speeders on the planet. “Is that yours?” stammered the besotted student.
“Not exactly, I have the loan of it from a friend,” said Chico. “Come for a drive, the studying will still be here when you get back.” Kyle had never been in trouble, was a studious learner and had been commanded by his parents not to let Chico into the house, ever, but the speeder did look amazing. Anyway if he went out with Chico he would not be letting him into the house.
“OK lets go into town and do some serious showing off but I cannot be too long.”
“Sure, let’s go but we will have to fly out of town so that you can see what this baby can really do.”
Kyle jumped into the passenger/co-pilot seat and the pair shot off, almost 200 feet vertically in the air and then without a hesitation accelerated away until the bang from the airwave indicated that the speeder had gone supersonic.
Kyle was having a great time and the exhilaration was almost the best feeling he had ever had, but the next thing he knew the speeder started to descend and he could make out the T-Max Supermarket at Willow coming in to view. A number of other aero cars were passed on the descent but Chico skilfully pulled into an empty parking bay and turned with a beaming smile, “How was that nephew?”
“No better than fantastic,” grinned the young student.
“Hold on here Kyle I am not sure how the alarm works, I need to pick up some food and drink and I will be back before you know.”
Kyle was absolutely in love with this beautiful piece of machinery and wondered what it would be like to drive, in fact why shouldn’t he just slide into the driver’s seat and get a feel of the Titan. He was still grinning like an idiot when a shadow passed the driver side window and another larger shadow covered the Titan from above.
Next thing Kyle remembers was a blinding flash of light, a searing pain in his head, then blackout. When he woke he had a massive headache and a feeling that something bad was happening to him. Summoning the strength to sit up he found himself in a small room with a heavy door and very little light. He was still coming to terms with his surroundings when the door opened and a blue uniformed EO, Enforcement Officer, walked in and his first words would stay with Kyle forever, “Morning Car Thief,” sorry we spoiled your fun but now you gotta pay the price.”
Despite all his protestations, his parent’s heart breaking confusion and despair, Kyle found himself briefly in front of a judge with nothing to say to defend himself without implicating Chico, who had not been seen since the arrest. He still felt in shock when the 15 year sentence was read out. All his hopes and dreams gone in an hour’s stupid joy ride and the last thing he saw as he was led away by his grim faced guard were his mother and sister weeping and his father just shaking his head. He was entering a new world as Kyle Cassidy convicted criminal.
Kyle felt a vibration under his chin and this brought him out of his slumber the comms chip vibration resonated round his skull, with an announcement from Ash, “Subject 5 minutes, prepare for boarding, energise Bio’s now and confirm”. Kyle pressed the green button on his Bio suit arm and the battery pack did its job
dropping the face visor from his helmet, pressuring the suit and starting the temperature control unit. One by one, the 5 would be rescuers confirmed the status of their suits as functioning and they were ready to go.
After the last of the party signed in, Esther activated her helmet microphone and began the boarding brief, “Your attention boarding squad, we are nearing the star trader ‘Seven Moons of Septimus’, a Jupiter Class vessel and one of the largest merchant craft in the Universe. Although it is still operating its distress beacon, ‘Seeker’ has received no answers to its hails and the ships sensor suite has detected no life signs.
This is a similar scenario to the schooner we encountered last week but this ship is massive and should have a crew of at least 400 officers and men.
The schooner ‘Papyrus’ should have had a crew of 15 or more but we found no-one on-board and we left our regular boarding party behind as a prize crew to take the vessel back to Zangoria to claim salvage. Well now it’s our turn to do the boarding and while you folks do not have a lot of practical experience we have practised this routine many times so I have confidence in each and every one of you.
Ash and O’Hara will deliver us via the auto airlock then return to orbit the craft, running sensors while we have a poke around. I will say this only once, this ship is gigantic and there are just five of us going on board, we will stay together, no one is to go wandering off is that understood? Is that understood?”
“Yes Sub,” came the reply as they knew Esther was serious and extremely on edge.
“Good first one out will be ‘Bambi’, Rachel Klein, followed by ‘Buzz Watabe’. You two secure the entrance to the ship’s deck, I’ll go next then 'Getaway' and 'Shiner' Ngola you bring up the rear.”
Ash switched the cabin view screens on so that the boarding party could see their objective and their first sight left them individually speechless. The Seven Moons of Septimus filled the whole screen, it wasn’t just large it was enormous, probably several hundred times the size of Seeker. Only five of these mobile planetary warehouses had ever been built in the entirety of settled humanity and due to their size they had to be built in space, as their huge laden mass could not achieve planetary lift even with its seismic power plant. The best description of its shape is to say that it resembled a bronze coloured metallic whale, but it should have been covered in lights but now it was totally blacked out except for the sporadic flashing of the navigation lights.
One by one they turned away from the view screens, their restraints suddenly clicked open and this was the signal for them to start gathering their gear. Each one had a close quarter ion projection pistol in a waist holster, a carbine and a plasmet shield but they also had backpacks with various engineering tools and test equipment.
Although the crewmen were employed as engineering technicians, they had all undergone basic military training as part of their company inductions and the Seeker had Sub Helmut Stahl, a Physical Training Officer who took his role as fitness and armaments trainer so seriously that the crew referred to him as the General. His drills were feared rather than enjoyed and quite often resulted in injury during the unarmed combat sessions. They were however only civilian Engineers not military types, and as yet had not put their training into practice. The thought of what could be waiting set each one of them on edge and even the normally cool Esther had a dry mouth and clammy hands.
Jed O’Hara, Jet to his friends the co-pilot and navigator, spoke through their respective comms chips, “Ladies and Gentlemen we have accessed the visitor air lock control computer and it is responding, we will be entering the objective in one minute, it will be a hard drop which is to say we will touch down but not land. As soon as the last of you are through the airlock door we will exit again to patrol the outside. Sub Fuentes please ready your squad on the count of ten.”
On seven the shuttle passed through the open air lock of the leviathan, on four the air lock door slid shut and on one the double doors of the shuttle opened up and they were moving.
Crewmen Klein and Watabe ran as though possessed, their carbines held aloft and their metre long shields bouncing on their backs. Twenty feet behind ran Esther, yelling at the top of her voice but the others were too pumped up to make out what she was saying. Then bringing up the rear were Kyle and Ngola both of whom effected to run forward whilst still covering the space behind them with their weapons.
Bambi was first to the air lock exit door, she pressed the amber 'open' button and it shot sideways exposing a corridor outside. She glanced both ways, waved her gun side to side as if to challenge an unseen foe and having not received a challenge shouted “clear” before stepping through the doorway. The other four quickly followed and Shiner being the last one pressed the blue button on the wall to close the air tight door behind them. This triggered the green hangar light which was the signal for the Shuttle pilots remotely to open the outer door of the gigantic trader before easing back into the darkness of space.
The boarding party were now alone in what appeared to be a crewless space ship the size of a large asteroid. All turned to Esther, who commanded “Keep your carbines powered up and your visors down and stay together, Getaway you lead off this time and follow the main corridor look for a way to get to the ships bridge.” The emergency lighting provided a weird green half-light which only added to the foreboding atmosphere.
A voice came out of Esther’s comms chip and it was Captain Wang of the Seeker, “Sub Fuentes, please report on your progress.”
“Fuentes here Captain, we have disembarked and are working our way towards the bridge. So far we have not encountered anyone living or dead.”
“Very good Esther, report back every fifteen minutes minimum or if you have any news. Take care all of you, there is something very wrong here and we have got to get to the bottom of it.”
Kyle whilst leading was stressed about finding his way and at the same time making sure the whole group did not wander into some trap or ambush, he gripped his carbine even tighter. After a few minutes he came to an elevator cabin; on the adjacent wall was a floor index and right at the top were the words ‘Bridge Suite’. Esther was motioned forward and she decided that they would use the elevator, with Kyle, herself and Bambi going up first. If it was all clear on arrival Bambi would come back down for the other two.
All went well and before long the five of them arrived at the Bridge, the security door which should be permanently closed, was hanging loosely from its mountings with blast marks scorched along the edges. This fact was relayed back to Captain Wang, who instructed Esther to search the bridge thoroughly and locate the ships log.
Kyle looked around the bridge and his first impression was how small it seemed in relation to the bulk of the ship, there were thirty or so desk/monitor units with operator’s chairs behind them, some had scorch marks which he guessed had been caused by one of a variety of energy weapons. At the front of the bridge were the plasma screen inserts, which on one hand formed the inner surface of the front wall and on the other contained visual receivers which faithfully replicated the view outside the ship. Displayed on the screen, he noticed the shuttle in the foreground which was now in a stationary holding position and behind it could be seen the larger squat outline of the Seeker, their mother ship.
Shola Ngola, known to the crew as Shiner due to his bald head, found something over by the Captain’s Chair and called everyone to look, it was a number of human outlines on the floor, their silhouettes etched into the surface by an unknown energy force leaving eerie black outlines on the mirrored metal plates. This find had a depressing effect on the detachment from the Seeker, now they knew for sure they were in imminent danger.
It was Buzz Watabe that broke the silence, “Well we know now why the Seeker didn’t receive a reply.”
Esther tried to get the group functioning again and instructed them to keep looking for the ships log. She also decided to call Captain Wang again using her helmet transmitter to inform him of the grisly find. Wang asked how
many bodies were discovered and Esther replied that they had found seven silhouettes in the bridge area, but of course they had not yet searched the rest of the ship. Captain Wang thought for a few seconds then said, “Esther, this is a bad situation but it gets stranger, even on a skeleton watch there would be twenty or so crew on the bridge and assuming your bodies are members of the bridge crew, where are the rest? I am afraid we need more answers and your team are the only people in the short term who can supply them. Proceed with your mission and see if you can find anything else which might give us some pointers. Give it another hour tonight in the bridge, then take it in turns to get some sleep and start your search of the rest of the ship tomorrow. To give you some assurance our sensors indicate the only life signs on the ship are yours and we have estimated that the emergency fuel cells are still capable of providing power at current levels for several more days. As I said, give it one more hour then call the shuttle in so that if you need to make a quick escape you will have the means. I will have Shapour and O’Hara updated and ready to expect your call. Be careful Esther, try and keep away from any trouble.”
“Thank you Captain we will be careful, I will call in when I stand down the search for the night.”
Everyone had an opinion where the log could be found, even though they did not know how it was stored or configured on a vessel of this class, so the hunt went on but still no sign of anything resembling a ships log.
It came to the point where Esther realized that her squad needed a break and she gave the order for them to assemble at the front of the bridge. As everyone gathered together, she spoke into her helmet microphone.
“Seeker Shuttle, do you read me? Ash come in.”
The response from the Shuttle was not what she expected. It was O’Hara, “What the flaming comets is that?”
The boarding party turned as one to look through the front observation panel and they were stunned to see a huge alien spacecraft complete its materialisation immediately above the Seeker. This alien ship was not only unexpected, it was like no other vessel that any of them had ever seen in the known cosmos. Its outline looked like a spider with long legs extending downward towards its prey.
Seeker of Moons (Cassidy's Command Book 1) Page 1
