Alpha Centauri: The Return (T-Space Alpha Centauri Book 3)

by Alastair Mayer

  “Commodore Drake, have you received any information which would reasonably lead you to believe that the Xīng Huā was not, in fact, destroyed?”

  On the screen, the prosecutor looked like he was about to stand up and object, but a stern look from Admiral Howard squelched that.

  “Yes,” Drake said, “I have.”

  “Thank you,” Cogley said, “no further questions at this time.”

  The trial proceeded in that vein. It became apparent to Drake that at least two of the three presiding admirals were inclined to favor his side, although Cogley told him that might be just wishful thinking on Drake’s part. A judge’s behavior during trial was never a good indication of how they felt; they might simply be making sure there were no grounds for appeal.

  Regarding the landing and subsequent abandonment of the Krechet, there were both log recordings and Captain Tsibliev’s own testimony that he had requested the landing. In fact, he had written up a formal request to do so, giving the scientific justifications for not landing near the Chandrasekhar’s refueling pod, before Drake had authorized the landing. Drake’s ass was covered, he just hoped Tsibliev’s superiors wouldn’t take it out on him. Since he had returned with all the data the Krechet’s team had collected, and the Russian ship had actually landed—and remained—on an extrasolar planet rather than loitering in orbit, that was a reasonable hope.

  The Krechet’s warp subsystem, its Interstellar Propulsion Module, had been destroyed per the standing order regarding any warp technology that had to be left behind.

  That left the USS Poul Anderson, and the crew who had landed with it.

  “You knew that with no refueling pod, the Anderson had no way to return to orbit, did you not?”

  “As did everyone who volunteered to land with it, yes.”

  “It was Captain Tracey’s ship. Did he land with it?”

  “You know he didn’t. No.”

  “So, he abandoned his ship to let it—”

  “Objection!” Cogley broke in. “Captain Tracey is not on trial here, and must be presumed innocent until tried and convicted. The suggestion that he abandoned his ship is unwarranted.”

  “Sustained,” Admiral Carter said sternly. “Counselor, that was an insult to an officer not on trial. Court recorder, strike that statement.”

  “My apologies, sir, the prosecutor said. “I withdraw the statement.” He paused a respectful few moments, then continued. “Commodore Drake, why didn’t Captain Tracey command the landing? It was his ship.”

  Cogley had coached Drake on this point too. “Respectfully, it was not. I had re-assigned the ship to acting-Captain Sawyer. I did not give Captain Tracey the opportunity to volunteer for the landing.” Not that Tracey had wanted to stay, for reasons Drake had no quarrel with, but that phrasing would make it hard to cast aspersions on the captain.

  That seemed to catch the prosecutor a little off-guard. His next question seemed off-script. “Why not?”

  Drake and Cogley glanced at each other. This was a perfect open-ended question.

  “A number of reasons,” Drake began. “First, in light of what we had found on our first landing, on Planet Baker, I decided, with the agreement and encouragement of the senior scientists on the mission, that it was of the utmost importance, both for scientific and for security reasons—” he emphasized the latter “—that additional research be performed on Planet Able, beyond what we had already done from orbit and using remote drones.

  “In light of the scientific nature of the landing mission, I deemed it appropriate to emphasize that in the selection of the landing team from the available volunteers. I already had more volunteers than I needed. Commander Sawyer is both a pilot and a doctor of planetological science, and qualified to both fly the Anderson and lead the landing team. With all due respect to Captain Tracey’s leadership and flying skills, he would have been supernumerary on the planet as far as the scientific investigation went.

  “I gave Sawyer a field-promotion to captain and gave her command of the Anderson. This is in no way a reflection on Captain Tracey’s qualifications. He did an admirable job of retrieving the Chandrasekhar from low orbit after its launch from Planet Baker.” Drake wanted to make sure that last was in the court record. “Finally, I knew that Captain Tracey was a family man; in fact I know his family personally. I wanted him to return to them in a timely manner.”

  The court took a moment to digest all that, then the prosecutor, recovering from his earlier gaffe, said, “So you relieved Tracey of command of the Anderson for personal reasons?”

  A surge of anger seethed through Drake, but he forced it down. “The primary reason related to success of the mission. And I did not relieve him of command, I assigned the Anderson to Sawyer for the duration of the landing. When it returns to space, it is Tracey’s again.”

  “That’s not likely to be any time soon, is it, Commodore?”

  “If the back-up refueling pod were available, I could have returned with it in the Heinlein by now,” Drake pointed out, doing his best to keep the anger out of his voice.

  The admirals looked as though they were trying studiously to ignore that last comment, but they let it stand.

  The prosecutor knew when he was licked. “All right. One final issue. The Anderson’s Interstellar Propulsion Module. What is its status?”

  Drake sighed. This was something of a Catch-22. Standing orders were to destroy any abandoned IPM. Technically, with the Anderson on the surface, it wasn’t really left behind, but with no way to return to space, it couldn’t be used.

  “It’s in orbit over Planet Able, acting as both a weather satellite and a relay for the Anderson team to beam transmissions to Earth. It will just take those four years to get here.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The trial had wrapped up with questioning of other witnesses and the admission of relevant log excerpts as evidence into the record. Then, finally, the court-martial adjourned for deliberation.

  Chapter 11: Wolves

  Epsilon Eridani II

  They crossed a kilometer of open grassland without incident. The closer they got to the ship, the better everyone felt, which helped counter the fatigue they were feeling between the pace of their march, and the post-adrenaline crash after the attack on the mammoths.

  They were about halfway now, a kilometer from the ship. Still too far for any effective cover. Shufeng was a good shot, but he was no sniper, and the QBZ-95-2 was no sniper rifle. At least there was no crosswind he’d have to compensate for, if it came to that.

  “Leapfrog,” he heard Wang Wei call, and he gave the area a final scan before turning to advance to the front.

  No crosswind. It dawned on Lee that that would mean that there was no specific downwind for the wolves to approach from, so they could come from any side. On the other hand, their own scent wouldn’t travel as far. He wondered how sensitive a sense of smell a dire wolf, or this alien wolf-bear equivalent, had.

  He passed Wang Wei, who had turned to watch the rear, then Zhang Min, scanning the front. As he reached a point about five meters forward of her, he heard a rustle in the grass from behind. He, paused, turning to check. Neither Zhang Min nor Wang Wei should be moving yet. He caught a blur of motion out of the corner of his eye as he turned, then howling snarls came up from several directions. The wolves were on all sides.

  One was charging Wang Wei from a point to the side and midway between him and Zhang Min. She had the better angle, and she had also turned at the sound. She took a shot, missing, but throwing the wolf off its stride.

  Lee turned back to the front, in time to see another wolf charging him, scant meters away. Gods it was huge! From above on the rock, they had looked smaller, but this one seemed least as tall as he was. He got off two shots in rapid succession, one of them grazing the wolf’s shoulder. It recoiled. Anot
her was approaching from the side.

  Lee realized the tactical mistake he had made. He and his people were too dispersed. When the wolves were in close, they risked shooting each other. There was enough space between them the wolves had managed to get almost between them before being noticed. “Close up on the center! To Zhang Min! Watch your shots!” Lee called to the others.

  He backpedaled a few steps, taking another shot at an approaching wolf, then looked back towards Zhang Min. About twenty meters to the left, roughly at the apex of a triangle with himself and her as the base, another wolf crouched, looking from one to the other of the two, as if deciding which to attack. Lee aimed and fired two shots at it before it could make up its mind. At least one hit, but not lethally. The wolf bounded back into the grass. Lee pivoted around, scanning for any others on the approach as he closed up with Zhang Min.

  Wang Wei was having a harder time of it. Two wolves were approaching him from different sides, one to the rear, one angled off to the side. As he swung his aim from one the other, they’d advance. When he aimed, the wolf he was aiming at would do a sideways dance like a monstrous puppy playing, while the other rushed forward. These wolves are too smart for our own good, thought Lee. He took a shot at the one angled off to the right. Wang Wei was in his line of fire for the other.

  He was back to back with Zhang Min now, who had fired at several other wolves, scaring them off at least. Lee couldn’t decide if there were more of the beasts than he’d thought, or they were just moving around so much that it seemed like more. Two more were approaching from the rough direction of the ship. He fired at them. Then he heard a scream.

  The wolves had been snarling and howling the whole time, a tactic to confuse and panic their prey, but the scream had been human. Wang Wei was down.

  He was on his knees, crouched over with his hands over his head, while a wolf had its jaws around his chest, shaking him from side to side. Lee took careful aim at the wolf’s midsection, roughly the center point of its motion, and fired. A hit! The wolf dropped Wang and turned to snarl at Lee, then bounded away.

  “To Wang, together,” Lee told Zhang Min, and they began making their way the dozen paces to where Wang Wei lay.

  A wolf charged and leaped at them midway, from Zhang Min’s side. Lee had no time to bring his rifle up, but Zhang Min’s rapid fire caught it mid-leap. It almost knocked them down when it hit the ground yelping and thrashing. She finished it off.

  How much ammo left? Lee wondered as they reached Wang Wei.

  He was injured, but his backpack had taken most of the wolf’s bite, at least on his torso. His jacket was torn, and there was blood, but not as much as Lee had expected. Wang’s left leg was another matter. That was bleeding profusely, with his trouser leg from the knee down shredded. At least, Lee hoped that mess was just trouser leg.

  Lee grabbed up Wang Wei’s rifle and gave it a once-over. No dirt in the barrel and the chamber was still closed, so at least one round still left and fire-able. He handed it to Zhang Min. “Spare.” Then, working as quickly as he could, pulled a spare strap from the outside of Wang Wei’s pack and bound it around his left leg, above the knee, and cinched it as tight as he could. “That should hold for a bit.” He rose to stand back to back with Zhang Min again, Wang Wei huddled at his feet.

  The wolves, those they could see, were circling them for another attack. There were three clumped together about ten meters away, one possibly wounded. As Lee raised his rifle, several puffs of dirt shot up from near the wolves, followed immediately by the sound of distant gunshots. Shufeng was doing his thing. Lee hoped it would help.

  He fired a shot of his own, and two wolves went down. There were more puffs of dirt. Shufeng must have hit one. Behind him, Zhang Min was shooting at some others.

  There was quiet for a moment, as the wolves had moved back a little and were making poor targets. Lee heard a faint whine in the distance, growing louder.

  “Do you hear that?” Zhang Min asked.

  “Yes. What now?” Lee wondered.

  A few moments later, his question was answered as the faint whine rose to a loud buzz, and shots rang out from above them. Dirt geysered in a wide circle around them. Lee spared a look away from the wolves, which were retreating slowly, to look up.

  Above them was one of their multi-rotor drones, modified to carry one of their QBZ-95 rifles and a trigger mechanism, hovering like a guardian dragon as it turned and shot at the wolves. As he watched in amazement, a box hanging underneath it opened, and a half-dozen loaded magazines dropped to the ground at their feet. He whooped with joy, and he and Zhang Min snatched them up and reloaded their rifles.

  Zhang Min resumed firing to keep the wolves away while Lee raised the ship.

  “Lee to Xinglong. Thank you for that, I owe someone a drink. Lots of drinks. We can discuss that later. Doctor Wang is injured, he’ll need help walking.” He really needed a stretcher, but that wasn’t an option. “How is that drone fixed for ammunition?”

  “We put a seventy-five-round drum on it. Still forty-seven rounds left. We’re counting.”

  They must have put a counter in the trigger circuit, but Lee was surprised at the ammo load. “You had a drum?”

  “Affirmative, at the back of the weapons locker. I don’t know why they thought that necessary, but it’s lucky they did.”

  “Whoever it was, their drinks are on me. Alright, can you fly top cover while we walk back? We’ll take turns with Wang Wei.”

  “Batteries are fully charged, affirmative. Are you sure you don’t want some help?”

  “Not until we’re within a hundred meters of the ship. These wolves are intelligent, sneaky bastards. I hope the drone keeps them scared off.”

  “It also has these.” The area around them suddenly bloomed brightly as spotlights on the drone lit up.

  “Excellent, that should discourage them.” It would also make it easier to see where they were going, and anything that might be trying to hide. “Watch your power though.”

  Half the lights on the drone went dark. It still left enough light to see by. “Acknowledged,” came the call.

  Lee turned to Zhang Min, who was still scanning the perimeter. “Help me get Wang up. Then you take guard while I help him walk. We’ll trade off at intervals.”

  Wang Wei looked up and moved to straighten up. “I can walk,” he said, struggling to stand.

  “Don’t be foolish. Here, arm over my shoulder. Anything in your pack you don’t want to lose?”

  “What? Specimens. Some gear.”

  “All replaceable. We’ll leave your pack for now.” He helped Wang unstrap it and let it drop to the ground. “How’s your right leg. Okay?”

  “Yes, I can hop. I do feel a bit dizzy.”

  “Blood loss and shock.” Lee checked the strap on his leg, and the blood below that. It wasn’t pouring out, but... “Wait a moment.”

  Lee quickly pulled a first aid kit from the pack on the ground. He sprayed the wound with an antibiotic and clotting agent, then covered it and wrapped it tightly with a bandage. Probably there was nothing on this planet which would infect the wound. Certainly, their preliminary screening had turned up nothing that didn’t respond to antibiotics. He hoped Wang Wei’s blood poisoned the wolf that had bitten him, if it was still alive.

  “Are we ready to go?” Zhang Min asked, sounding nervous and impatient.

  Wang Wei nodded. “Yes, let’s.”

  “All right,” Lee said. “Move out.” He looked up at the drone and waved, then pointed. The drone twirled as if in response, then swept around a broad circle, checking that the wolves were keeping their distance, then returned to a position above and slightly behind the trio making its slow way back to the ship.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The wolves had either learned that humans were made more dangerous prey than th
ey were worth, or the drone intimidated them. They managed to make it back to the ship with no further attacks, although twice the drone fired on something lurking in the shadows just beyond its lights. Lee and Zhang Min traded off helping Wang, who was weakening rapidly.

  For the last two hundred meters, the two of them had each taken one of Wang Wei’s arms over their shoulders and were effectively dragging him back to the ship while the drone orbited above them. Seventy-five meters out, Ping Wei and Jian Qing met them with the stretcher from the ship’s medical bay, and together the four of them carried Wang back at a jog.

  Zhang Min and Lee collapsed, exhausted, at the foot of the boarding ladder, and sat leaning back on a landing leg while Jian Qing and medic Ping Wei secured Wang and the stretcher to the ship’s winch and hoisted him up. Shufeng Bai came down and joined them, handing them each a cool bottle of liquid.

  “Electrolyte,” he said. “You need it.”

  He was right. Despite the cool temperatures, Lee’s shirt under his jacket was soaked with sweat, and he could feel his muscles cramping from their recent exertion.

  “Thank you,” Lee said, and took a long, deep drink. It was cool but not too cold, sweet and tasting slightly of salt and citrus. He chugged it greedily. “How is Wang Wei?”

  “You should ask the medic. Severe shock and blood loss. They were putting an IV into him as soon as he was on board. But he was breathing.”

  “That’s something.” Lee wasn’t sure Wang would ever have the use of his left leg again. He hoped it wasn’t as bad as it had seemed out there in the field. He drained the rest of his bottle and handed the empty back to Shufeng. “By the way, nice shooting back there.”

  “Not at all. I hardly hit anything.”

  “You got at least one, and distracted the rest. Thank you.” Lee put a hand on the landing leg and pulled himself upright. “Come on, Zhang Min. Let’s get back into the ship. You too Shufeng Bai, bring up the rear and close the hatch. We’re done out here for the night.”