by Randy Dyess
“Here we go again,” Skip added to the conversation as the ship’s AI announced the FTL tunnel exit.
“Ship’s all green, Captain,” Skip reported two minutes later. The crew were getting better at coming out of a FTL tunnel ready for action.
“Captain! I’m getting low band transmissions and ship activity. Nothing from the main station, but the mining ships seemed to be talking.”
“I have three mining ships coming our way,” the tactical officer announced.
“Hail them. Find out who they are,” Dakota commanded.
“Peterson mining vessels, this is the Sullivan Shipping security vessel Sullivan’s Pride, respond please.”
“Oh, thank god you’re here,” a voice shouted out through the comm system. “We’ve been cut off for a month now.”
“Give me a quick summary of the problem,” Dakota interrupted the voice.
Five minutes later, Dakota and Owen had the full picture of what had happened to the mining station. A single spider ship had exited near the station over a month ago, and started firing plasma balls at it. The station wasn’t destroyed, nor was anyone hurt, but the weapons fire from the ship destroyed the communications array. It also managed to destroy the only ship near the station which could create a FTL tunnel or contact Peterson mining. No one knew how the raiders would know to target the one ship with FTL capability, but they did. For the last month, the station and its miners had been cut off from the outside world. The station had a docking port large enough for the Sullivan’s Pride and Dakota and Owen were able to use it to go aboard the station and talk to station’s administrators. “Like I said,” the station’s top administrator repeated. “Everyone is fine. None one was hurt when those pirates attacked us. You said, you don’t know who they are?”
“No, sir. We were just told to swing by and check you out. Peterson hadn’t heard from you in a while and your cargo ship missed its delivery schedule.”
“Whoever they were, they knew exactly where to hit us,” the administrator responded. “I’ve never seen a weapon like that before. What did you think it was again?”
“Plasma balls,” Owen said. “We don’t know how they do it, but someone has figured out a way to contain plasma in a weaponized ball. It’s nasty stuff, you’re lucky your station didn’t experience a leak.”
“I’ll say,” one of the administrators responded remembering how Owen described the melted Candus security vessels.
“Well, we have enough supplies for six months and can continue operations without communications, but we’d really like to get back in touch with Peterson.”
“Package up a message and I’ll have my guys send it out for you,” Dakota said. “I promise I’ll file my report as soon as we clear the asteroid belt and let them know about the attack and your destroyed comm array.”
“Are you going after the people who did this to us?”
“We’re trying. You’re not the first to get hit or the last; although, I haven’t heard of them hitting anyone twice. They didn’t raid you, just made sure you couldn’t communicate. That tells me that they may be operating out of this sector and just wanted you off the air.”
“Lucky for us we only mine base materials; otherwise, they might have boarded us.”
You don’t know how lucky you really were, Dakota thought as she got up to leave and go back to the Sullivan’s Pride. She could tell Owen thought it was strange that the spiders boarded a much smaller mining asteroid, but didn’t board the space station.
Once back on the Sullivan’s Pride and heading towards their FTL endpoint, Dakota and Owen met in her ready room. “I don’t understand,” Owen started off the conversation. “There were a thousand people on that station and only a hundred or so on the asteroid. Why not raid it like the others?”
“I don’t know,” Dakota replied. “Let’s let Cheyenne and her team try to figure that one out. Right now, I just want to go home. We’ll tell the remaining survivors they must come with us and we’ll find somewhere to take them once we get back to Pegasus Prime.”
“I think they’ll understand,” Owen responded before getting up and looking at a map Dakota had displayed on her main monitor. “Candus, Phidias, the mining station, the asteroid. They’re attacking this whole sector. I bet we’d find at least two more planets and a few dozen mining outposts have been attacked if we bother to look.”
“What are you thinking?”
Owen put his hands on the monitor where the recent attacks happened, “I think this whole area has already been attacked,” he said looking at the area on the monitor between his hands. “And, I think they’re moving this way.” Owen moved his hands downward and they stopped when they covered Pegasus Prime.
“Damn,” Dakota responded as she grasped what Owen was thinking. “Taurus sector, Pegasus sector, and maybe even Terreca sector are all in that path. Then—“
“Then comes the core sectors,” Owen finished up for her. “If things keep up, within a year or two, all of humanity will be on the run from these monsters.”
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First Contact
Spider Wars: Book 1
Copyright: Randy Dyess
Published: 5th February 2017
Publisher: Lazy Dog Publishing
The right of Randy Dyess to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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About The Author
I've spent my years in a variety of jobs - once I decided to stop going to school after spending five years 'trying' to get some kind of degree. I've worked crappy jobs at alarm companies, liquor stores, grocery stores. I've spent time in the U.S. Army until I messed up a knee and was medically discharged. I worked for a few years as a deputy sheriff basically fighting inmates at the local country maximum security jail. Worked with the state of Texas at their food stamp office (very short job).
Went on (after a short time being ill and not working) work for an insurance company reconciling the membership of company insurance plans. Left that job for the real estate racket (sold one house in the first year and still made the same amount of money as the insurance job.) Brushed up old skills and found a job working computers right before the Y2K thing. Studied my butt off and learned how to be a database administrator and did that for over twenty years. Now, I work as an information security officer specializing in database security. Interesting role which always keeps me on my toes.
Thanks for reading my stuff and I do enjoy constructive criticism about my writing. I cannot get better if all
you do is give me a bad review without saying why. The same goes for the good reviews – tell me why you liked it so I can repeat it the next time.
Spider War Series:
Battle At Pirate’s Bay: Book 0
First Contact: Book 1
On The Run: Book 2
Fighting Back: Book 3: (Coming Apr, 2017)
Fleet Action: Book 4: (Coming May, 2017)
Invasion: Book 5: (Coming Jun, 2017)
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