Voyage of the Hayden (The Adventures of Christopher Slone Book 1)

by Donald Nicklas

  “Well, your father’s reasons for doing anything are above my pay grade. My only interest here is to get your people and mine back through the wormhole and home safely. I think that’ll be more than enough to worry about.”

  Just then, Dane came in from the mess hall and reported that all of his troops were aboard and all weapons checked out. The marines were ready to go. Alaya used the external speakers on the scout to call her crew to the bridge, which had a second entrance from the outside. Her crew had bunked with their equivalent profession on the Hayden. The scout vessel's crew now entered and was each introduced to Slone. This was Alaya’s secondary crew, her primary having perished in the previous visit to the Methane Moon. Allen Farnsworth, tall, dark haired with the pale complexion of his English ancestry, was her normal copilot. For this mission he would be a backup and help with ordinance needs. The navigator was Paul McMann, short, stocky with a nerdy appearance and an olive complexion. Diana Tojo was an exotic beauty from a different time. She was from a pure Japanese colony that survived the corporate wars due to their millennia old warrior tradition. She was slender, short and attractive with long, raven hair. Her normally cheerful disposition hid abilities that made her a person not to trifle with. She was Alaya’s engineer and in charge of ordinance. The electronics specialist also doubled as the mining surveyor. He was introduced as Roger Umgabe. His ancestry was from old Earth Africa, a continent that had long since lost its distinction and its wildlife. The last World War also put an end to its forests. He was of medium height, with black, curly hair and very dark skin. What impressed Slone most about him was his constant smile and lack of pessimism, no matter how bad things may become. Tom Gardner rounded out the crew and was in charge of communications. His heritage was from the old United States, and he was mixed in his genetic makeup, as were almost all of the space colonists in the galaxy. He was of medium height with reddish brown hair and a freckled, boyish face.

  Slone could tell immediately that this was an experienced crew. They knew how to work with each other and achieve the necessary goals. They all reported their stations operational and ready for the mission. They had spent most of the morning prepping the ship. He could also see at once that their loyalty was for Alaya and they tolerated him because she did. Alaya beginning to issue commands interrupted his thoughts.

  “Tom, contact the Hayden and tell them we are ready to launch.”

  The communication tech did as he was told and clearance was given with information that no other vessels of any kind were present in the system. Alaya was clearly the commander but her relations with her crew were casual and rank did not seem to matter. In fact, none of her crew was introduced with a rank nor did they ever address each other by rank. They also wore no rank insignia. Slone began to wonder if they were part of the Sinclair military arm or if the scout squadrons were civilian. With little warning, Alaya raised the scout off the hangar deck and flew her out of the hangar shield and into space. Slone had little to do as copilot. Alaya was an expert with her ship and she needed no help in guiding it. She turned to her electronics tech, “Roger, activate the stealth shield. Let’s go invisible just in case.”

  “Shield activated. We are now electronically invisible. We should be safe as long as no one is looking into the sky.”

  “With the cloud density here, no one will see us.”

  “Hayden to Dragon's Claw. Status report we just lost you on our sensors.”

  “The Hayden is requesting a status report. They say we vanished from their screens,” Tom said.

  Slone swore he saw a little smile at the corner of Alaya’s mouth. “Tell them we are fine, just went into stealth mode.”

  Tom Gardner responded, “We’re just fine here, Hayden, we only activated our stealth mode. Glad to see it’s working as advertised. Scout ship Dragon’s Claw out.”

  After a short pause, Tom replied, “They send their compliments and they are impressed. They also wish us God speed. Regards to Captain Slone.”

  All communication now went silent as they entered the atmosphere and lost visibility. The major problem with stealth mode lies in the fact that it prevents all emissions, and that includes shipboard radar and sensors. It’s similar to the silent running of submarines in Old Earth history. Everyone was looking intensely out the bridge window, willing their eyes to penetrate the atmosphere. Paul, at navigation, suddenly said, “Alaya, I’m picking up an emission about ten kilometers below us and off our port side. It’s the probe the Hayden sent out earlier. It’s still hovering near the cave entrance.”

  “If we bring the ship above the probe and drop straight down we should avoid all obstacles. Send the coordinates of the probe to my console and I will take it from there.”

  Alaya stopped her descent and moved to the left until the coordinates told her she was directly over the probe. From that point, she began to descend again until she was 500 meters above the probe. The external cameras mounted on the bottom of the ship showed the probe in the distance and they were now below the cloud level and could see the plain stretching out before them. Off to starboard they could see the entrance to a huge cavern.

  “There is the cave, right on target. As it turns out it was a good call to send that probe down here, Captain. Tom, send a tight band, burst transmission to the Hayden to let them know we made it. Then no more communication.”

  Tom Gardner did as told. From that point on there would be no more communication with the Hayden, until the mission was behind them and they were back in orbit. No one knew if the methane breathers could pick up emissions or not, but no one was willing to take the chance either. Alaya brought the ship to the cave entrance and put her down just outside the overhang. As soon as they landed, she pressed the communication button for the mess hall.

  “Dane, we’re down at the cave entrance. Prep your troops and head out when you’re ready. We’ll stay on station here and keep the engines hot if we need a quick exit.”

  “Understood. We are getting ready to head out now.”

  Slone took the downtime to examine his surroundings. He had been on many planets and planetoids in his career, but none quite as gloomy as the Methane Moon. The atmosphere was so dense that only a fraction of the light from the distant sun penetrated the clouds to the surface. The moon’s eccentric orbit prevented the gas giant from eclipsing it, but there was a day/night cycle of just over thirty-two hours. The landing had been timed to coincide with early morning at the cave site. This gave them the maximum time without having to deal with darkness. The problem, as Slone saw it, there was very little light to work with even during the day. The environmental suits the marines wore had forward lights that had a three-hour battery life. The intent was to go in, get the computer core from the vessel deep in the cave and return. If they were lucky, they would be left alone. The cave would be filled with oxygen once they neared the ship or sooner if attacked. This was calculated to give them time for the mission and poison any methane breathers in the way.

  Slone heard the cargo bay door open and soon he could see Dane and his marines walking away from the ship in combat order. The moon was about the size of Mars, so its gravity was close to forty percent that of earth. This meant Dane and his troops had to be careful, since any quick movement would be greatly exaggerated, and could cause them to tip over. Alaya had positioned the scout ship to face the cave for direct visual of the activity. Monitors carried camera images of the sides and rear views. The marines sent out four scouts ahead and six flankers with the main force acting as rear guard. The sixteen members of the main group pushed the anti-gravity sled holding the container of liquid oxygen in front of them. Though it weighed several tons, it floated effortlessly a foot above the surface. Slone watched them enter the cave mouth and disappear. He could just make out the remains of the second scout ship that was near the cave mouth, but their target, the first ship was much farther in. Soon the marines were out of sight in the murkiness of the atmosphere inside the cave. Slone then turned his attention to the
monitors showing what each marine’s helmet camera transmitted. Alaya was able to cycle through each of the marines to assess what was happening. Once the marines had left, the cargo bay was closed. Alaya decided to keep the hold unpressurized to allow for quick opening if the need arose. External ship cameras showed that all was quiet outside the vessel and the rear camera did not reveal any movement on the plain behind them.

  Alaya flipped the monitor screen to Dane’s camera and they could see the inside of the cave to the extent that the light penetrated. Nothing moved and Slone would declare the cavern empty if not for the story Alaya told. The marines were maintaining radio silence and using hand signals. The forward scouts signaled all clear as the main body passed the wreck of the first ship. Alaya switched to one of the forward scout’s cameras and this showed the cave widening beyond the entrance to form a large space at least a half kilometer in diameter with a vaulted ceiling. The scout was looking around, constantly assessing threats and other risks. Slone had to admit, Dane’s men were well trained. Against the back wall of the cave, Slone could just make out the form of the second scout vessel. He could see Alaya’s descriptions were right; it was stripped down to the skeleton. It was obvious that the methane breathers had moved it further in after Alaya’s incursion. This would make it much more difficult to get out in the event of an attack. The hairs went up on the back of Slone’s neck. This looked like a trap.

  “Alaya, I don’t like the looks of this. I sense a trap here.”

  “I agree.” Alaya pressed a button on console. “Dane, they moved the ship further in. Be ready for a trap.”

  Dane pressed a button twice to blink a light on the console indicating he heard the warning, yet maintaining radio silence. Alaya switched back to Dane’s camera and saw him entering the wreck of the older scout vessel. She watched with interest, since she had never personally reached it. The inside was as torn up as the other vessel, but there were the remains of a corroded body in the corner of the bridge. The pilot no doubt. There was no evidence of a head and Slone assumed the aliens had taken it. The memory of a human brain controlling the alien destroyer in the Purgatory system still haunted his dreams. Alaya’s voice suddenly brought him out of his thoughts.

  “Dane has the memory core. They are getting ready to return. Diana, be ready to open the cargo bay as soon as they get back.”

  Dane now reversed the course of the marines, after stowing the memory core into a pouch on his suit. When they reached the middle of the cavern room, Dane signaled the marines pushing the liquid oxygen to shut off the anti-gravity sled and drop the container right there. This done they moved towards the entrance with caution. They had not gotten more than a few meters past the oxygen container when the aliens attacked. At almost the same time, a message was received from the Hayden.

  “Captain, we are picking up heat signatures from the plain related to the shallow excavations we saw earlier. They appear to be engine signatures.”

  Slone looked at the rear camera image and saw a large number of small ships raising from shallow hiding places whose fake coverings had been moved to the side. Slone realized they were ignoring them and heading off planet. That could only mean they were heading for the Hayden.

  “Move the ship out of orbit and away from the moon. Head back to the wormhole and pass through if you are able. You have several hundred small ships heading your way. My guess is they’ll try to board you.”

  “Aye sir, what about you?”

  “Don’t worry about us. We will head in the other direction and try to draw them off as soon as our landing party is back aboard. The scout has been through the wormhole several times already”

  “Understood.”

  The Hayden pulled out of orbit and headed into the system space where she could maneuver. She started to move towards the wormhole. There was sudden screaming from the landing party’s open communicators. The bridge crew was helpless to do anything. Their job was to keep the ship in readiness for evacuation.

  Dane felt them before he saw them. Years of military missions taught him to sense danger. As they pulled away from the liquid oxygen container, the methane breathers suddenly attacked. They hit the forward scouts and the flankers at the same time. They reared up from the cave floor. Before they had appeared to be rocks but Dane now could see that the rocks moved. By some sheer luck, Dane and the core group of marines were standing on real rock, but the flankers and scouts were standing on the living rocks and these suddenly engulfed them. Dane could do nothing but watch as his men died. He pulled the detonator out of his pocket, flipped the switch cover and threw the switch. Suddenly they heard some pops as the cover blew off the gas regulators on the oxygen cylinders and then there was a loud “whoosh” as the ends blew off the nine layered gas cylinders in the rack. Suddenly, the cavern filled with roiling clouds of oxygen as the cold liquid oxygen passed through the warmers installed on the container. Even though it was very cold on the moon, Sinclair weapon’s techs had used a chemical to generate heat when the oxygen came out. This would keep it a gas for a while. The cave also appeared to have geothermal heat in it. The methane breathers started either dropping or moving away as the white clouds covered the marines. A quick check of the flankers and scouts revealed three severely wounded and the rest gone. The wounded and the remaining marines began to move with the expanding oxygen to the cave mouth. Once outside they had one hundred meters still to cover to the ship. The bridge crew was ready to open the hatch when they were within 50 meters.

  As soon as they reached the cave mouth, the oxygen cloud traveling with them began to dissipate rapidly. Once they were in the clear, they picked up the pace as best they could, while carrying the wounded. However, they did not get more than a few meters from the cave mouth when rocks outside the cavern began to move and the aliens used their whip-like appendage to fling stones at high speed. Some were using projectile weapons. The marines advanced slowly and returned fire. They also threw their oxygen encased thermite grenades, which had the desired effect as several of the enemy had their outer covering blown open and their internal methane gas ignited. The resultant explosion blew them to pieces and kept the others at bay. Despite this, the sheer volume of incoming fire could not help but take its toll. Dane lost another five marines and one of the wounded died along the way. Dane and the remaining 13 marines reached the cargo hold opening and entered the doors, which Alaya opened as they approached. As soon as all were aboard, Dane hit the controls, the doors shut and the cargo hold re-pressurized. The aliens began to pelt the hull with stones and slugs, fired from their projectile weapons, as they continued to move closer to the ship.

  “We better get out of here,” said Alaya as she fired the rockets and raised the ship off the ground.

  The door at the back of the bridge opened and Dane poked his head in and said, “We need to fire a missile into the cavern. The mix of oxygen and methane should collapse the roof.”

  Alaya nodded at Diana who pushed a button and they could feel a slight lurch as a missile shot from the tube beneath the bridge deck. They could see its trail as it rapidly closed the gap to the cave and entered the mouth of the cavern. It impacted the back wall of the cavern and exploded. In the normal atmosphere of the Methane Moon, the blast would have been small and only a portion of the back wall would have crumbled. With the mix of oxygen and methane that was now in the cavern, the fire from the missile flamed through the entire interior of the cavern and became an expanding fireball. The pressure from the blast crushed everything in its path and the aliens still in the cave were blown into fragments, as were the wrecks of the first two scout ships. The cavern entrance was much smaller than the cavern itself. This resulted in pressure first pushing against the walls and then funneling towards the opening like air escaping from a balloon. Flames shot out of the entrance and destroyed any aliens along with human bodies lying outside the cave. Alaya pulled hard on her controls after the missile was fired, and just escaped the blast wave from the opening. The oxygen
was quickly used up and the flames extinguished. The pressure had bulged the cave, raised and damaged the overhang. When the pressure dropped, the roof over the entrance collapsed and the cave was no more. Alaya had finally completed her mission. The scout vessel accelerated towards the top of the clouds and entered the upper atmosphere of the moon.

  “Any pursuit?” Alaya asked.

  “None on the scanners.” Roger Umgabe answered.

  The ship breached the upper atmosphere and surrounding space came into view. Neither the Hayden nor the alien ships were in view. “Roger, scan the system for the Hayden and put us in stealth mode. No use attracting any attention.”

  The door to the flight deck opened and Dane entered the already cramped space. “Thanks for pulling our fat out of the fire, Alaya. That was close.”

  “The oxygen worked perfectly. That was a good call on your part Dane. Where’s the memory core?”

  Dane reached into a zippered pocket on his vest and pulled out a small, cylindrical object. Alaya took it from him and put it into a secure lockbox on the bridge. “It will be safe here and if the ship doesn’t make it, then the core will go with it.”

  “Good idea. We’re not out of the woods yet and we could get captured.”

  “Alaya,” Roger suddenly interrupted. “I’ve located the Hayden. She is heading towards the wormhole with multiple small vessels in pursuit. Must be the ones from the plain. Captain Slone, they are gaining on her.”