by H. T. Kofruk
“With your permission, Admiral, I would like to conduct a quick scan of the surface myself, just for the sake of peace of mind. We lost dozens of good men and they were the only ones capable of giving us vital information.”
The Pacific admiral looked hesitant. His tired eyes and wrinkled brow line mirrored Rick’s. “I must give you my apologies since I do not have the authority to grant that request. But perhaps I can arrange something if you were able to provide us with anything that we might be interested in knowing” he replied.
‘So, he wants an exchange of information, the sly bastard’ thought Rick. It was obvious that the Pacific Federation would also be interested in information that the Atlantic was so frantically searching for. But he didn’t have the authority either to convey sensitive intelligence. It was important to Rick to scan the planet just to ensure that the Pacific wasn’t concealing anything. Waiting for authorization from command would take days again, time that he didn’t have.
“Let’s make a deal. You know I can’t give you the info. But if you let my ship scan the surface of that planet, I will give you a very rough idea of a potentially very big problem.”
He knew he was taking a risk by doing this but hell, if the problem was as big as he thought it could be, they were going to need all the help that they could get.
The man on the projector nodded but said “You talk first, and we let you do your search afterwards.”
Rick shook his head to this. “I could talk but then you could have the information and still stop us from searching. You keep your guns on us while we scan, and if I don’t give you something of value, you can use them.”
His opposite number looked thoughtful, staring intently at Rick. Finally, he slowly nodded his head and the projector went blank. Rick sighed of relief.
He ordered his science officer to analyse the surface and detect any proof of the alleged attack and of any survivors. The tall, blond science officer repeated his command and input them into the ship computer. Half an hour of scanning and the science officer certified that the planet had in fact been attacked and a large crater was visible on one of the larger islands. The lack of radiation, the size of the crater indicated that the attack was not nuclear, but probably a large mega-size pulse missile. There was no visible trace of human activity. His recommendation was to leave and assume everyone had been vaporized.
Rick didn’t like it one bit; a precision attack on the last survivors of the Janpu attack meant that the culprit was reading their mail. The timing suggested the interception of the same message that he himself had received. He ordered a communication wormhole opening to where the rest of the fleet was. An electronic message transfer line was soon established with the cruiser IGN Eden.
“Yes sir” answered Captain Jack Tripolski to the hail from the fleet mothership.
“Captain, is there any trace of the disappeared mothership? Any fragments?”
“Not yet, sir. The other ships are completely intact and I seriously doubt the IGN John the Baptiste disintegrated. I strongly believe she was boarded and taken.”
After a few minutes of thought, Rick thanked the captain and shut down communications. They have an Atlantic Alliance mothership. Normally, if a ship was in danger of being boarded, a single button would destroy all sensitive information on board that ship, effectively frying the ship’s computer and killing the code bacteria used for decryption. If whoever was responsible for the two attacks was able to decrypt the electronic data with ease, it only meant they were able to kill everyone on board before this function could be exploited. The situation was much worse than he thought.
Rick hailed the Pacific mothership again and was greeted by the same admiral. “I appreciate your allowing us to scan your territory” he said and immediately continued to what was expected. “A few days ago, one of our planets was attacked by an unknown enemy. We have just discovered this and it seemed that it was premeditated and well thought through. The only survivors of that attack somehow floated to this planet. They were the only ones that know the true identity of this new enemy and how they were attacked.”
The Pacific admiral was intrigued. “Who do you think is behind it? Did they have advanced weapons systems?”
“Up to now, there are two possibilities. Either they are a new alien army that one of the empires has cooked up or they are a completely new force to be reckoned with and they were making a statement. Admiral, I am afraid that is all I know and already well beyond what I should be discussing with you. Thank you again for your help.”
The other man looked satisfied. “This information is very interesting. Our command will be notified of a possible alien attack on our territory and our forces will be put on alert. I appreciate your candour, Admiral Hernandez.”
“And I yours, Admiral Nakase.”
With that the communication was cut. Now all he had to do was wait until the wormhole opened.
Chapter 18: Aftermath
‘Pacific Federation ingenuity was feared and envied. Though they held fewer planets than either the Chinese or the Atlantic, they were known to study every element in minute detail and invent new uses for seemingly useless discoveries.’ – Sam Dwight, British Historian,
She awoke in the darkness. At first, she didn’t recall where she was. Was she in her room back on Earth? Her eyes sensed a very small light in the darkness. She turned her head to see where the light was coming from and saw a tiny dot of brightness. She squinted and tried to remember where she was and how she got there while looking intently at the dot.
Someone groaned beside her and that triggered her memory. She remembered the wall of dark earth come at her at great speeds. Yes, the black ravine was the last thing that she remembered, along with the wind ripping violently at the back of her neck. The volcanic rock had obviously saved her and, it seemed, Terry. His commandeering ways in the desperate situation came to her. He had been fast but calm in the face of imminent death. She could only admire this quality.
She started groping around to see if she was hurt. A slight pain stung her in her right shoulder but all in all she seemed to be alright. She focused again on the spot of light and reached for it but her hands were blocked by a barrier of earth. Using both hands, she tried to tunnel through. Earth fell on her face and her hands hurt. If Terry was conscious, she could sure use his help. While digging, she suddenly felt anxious that perhaps he wasn’t okay. Perhaps he was seriously injured or even paralyzed. She shuddered at the thought but it also drove her to dig faster.
An hour of continuous digging and she was sure that her hands were now bleeding. She could almost smell the fresher air. A large rock now separated her from the outside and with all her strength she managed to push it outside. The sudden abundance of light blinded her and she shaded her eyes with her hands. But once her eyes had adjusted to the light, the sight was shocking. The world around her was flattened into nothingness. The plants, the animals, even the river had disappeared, evaporated. She was housed in between two large boulders. The shock of the explosion had weakened at this distance so the boulders hadn’t been ripped out of the ground. She thanked her good luck and Terry’s judgment.
She was suddenly reminded of him and went back down to find him still unconscious. The light funnelled down to where he was and she could see no visible signs of injury. She called his name but only got a groan in return. She tried shaking him but he still wouldn’t come out of his unconsciousness. Apologizing in advance, she slapped him in the cheek. It had an immediate effect and he opened his groggy eyes.
“Morning” he said, apparently oblivious to what they had gone through and what kind of situation they were in. This made her laugh.
“We made it” said Heera. “But I’m afraid there’s not much left out there.”
Terry squinted his eyes and after a few seconds seemed to recall what had happened. With some difficulty he pulled himself out of the vehicle. Heera was relieved to see that he was
in good shape apart from a small bruise on his forehead. He climbed out of the tunnel that Heera had created and looked around at the barren landscape. Heera soon joined him.
“We can’t eat anything here and the river has evaporated. Our only hope is to go back to where the garrison was and hope that someone scans the surface, without the intention of killing us this time” he said.
Heera nodded. She was already very thirsty and knew that they could only survive a couple days without waters, especially in this heat.
“Don’t worry” he reassured her. “Once we’re there, there might be survivors. Installations like that often have underground bunkers designed for such attacks with provisions.”
Heera wasn’t sure of that. The installation was there mainly for research purposes, to gather and study local life forms that may yield benefits. There wasn’t much of use so far so investment had not been generous. But she decided to at least try and believe what Terry was saying.
The two climbed down the boulder and started walking back across the ashes and baked earth. The lack of moisture in the air was soon felt as the dryness and heat started to scorch their throats and nostrils. Hopefully, the intense heat of the explosion would soon unleash rain from the tons of evaporated water. If there was an underground bunker, it was vital they find it before the rain started falling. The twenty or so miles felt like hundreds as they trudged on.
Heera wondered about radiation from the explosion and wanted to ask Terry but instead thought that it would be better to conserve her moisture. Besides, if there was more bad news, she preferred to remain ignorant to it.
After two hours of walking, Terry saw something gleaming in the ground. He quickened his pace to see what it was while Heera maintained her snail’s pace. The blood on her fingers had now become dark and hard. Terry finally reached the object and picked it up. It was what he was hoping for, a canister of pressurized water. He frantically shook it to see if there was anything inside and to his relief, a swooshing sound came from within. He opened the lid and squeezed the top. A small amount of water depressurized and exited the nozzle where he had his mouth open, waiting. The mouthful felt like it had come straight from heaven. The cool water seemed to smooth the inside his crackling mouth like a flood does a drought-stricken plain. After his first mouthful, he handed the canister to Heera who gulped down a mouthful.
“Hopefully, this isn’t the only one. We have half a gallon of water here and it should get us going a few hours” said Terry.
Heera was merely grateful that it had survived the blast. Perhaps there was more that had survived. She began to gather hope.
The short day was soon waning. The setting pale sun was now a shade of yellow as it set in the horizon. After a good five hours trudging in the scorched earth, the two reached the edge of the giant crater when there were only a few rays left. A few drops fell, warning them of the violent downpour that was to come. They climbed down to the centre of the crater hoping that a secret passage doorway would be exposed. They dug through the rubble and earth with their bare hands but nothing revealed itself.
The rain was now starting to come down hard. Terry grabbed Heera by the arm and gestured towards the ridge of the crater. They had to get out of there quickly or else risk being drowned in the new water-filled reservoir. The ashes and dark earth had become a slurry of thick mud. Each step required a lot of effort as feet got stuck in the treacle-like soil. The basin of the crater became a large puddle of water within minutes. Light was fading fast. With all the energy their fit bodies could unleash, the two finally got to the ridge and fell heavily, panting.
Terry knew they still had to get out of there, to shelter. The shock of the explosion coupled with the incessant, monsoon-like rain could easily result in hyperthermia. Soon, the only light came from Heera’s small doctor’s flash. Not knowing which direction they were going, they supported each other in almost complete blindness. Heera started shivering from the cold.
After an hour’s walk, Heera fell to the mushy ground. It suddenly all felt hopeless. She would die on a strange planet just weeks into her new career. Terry helped her up and put his arms around her. Wiping the mud off the flash, she looked into Terry’s eyes. He had a worried but determined expression. Despite the rain water on her face, he knew that she was crying.
“Heera, we’re not going to die here. Too many people have already died. Not us” he said.
“How can you be sure?” she asked between her sobs. “How do you know?”
“Because God spared us for a reason. We need to learn why” he answered.
Heera could not understand where this resolute faith came from. She almost envied him. There was no doubt in his mind that they had a purpose and they wouldn’t die before they had accomplished what they were supposed to. It almost comforted her. Was she now falling for his words?
She wiped the salty tears from her face and looked back at him with a firm expression. He was right; something had saved them from the same fate as the hundreds of people working on the installation. It was perhaps no coincidence that they had met on Kheut either, beating the odds of billions. Help would come, she knew it.
Chapter 19: The Smuggler
‘My ancestors came to this continent almost eight centuries ago as slaves. They suffered centuries of systematic discrimination. Yet when the ice storms came, they endured five decades of extreme winter, when everyone else left. They guarded America when soldiers, businessmen and politicians fled to the south or to warmer foreign lands. When the cowards came back, they wrote a new bible and used it to evict me and my family from our home. So now, for the first time in hundreds of years, my family is going back to the land whence we came, to Afrika.’ – From the diary of an unknown American immigrant to the Afrikan Republic, year 2474 (est.)
Bongani looked intently at the holographic map. He had hacked into Pacific Federation monitors and could see where Pacific ships were patrolling. He was not going to pay them a single penny, to hell with the trading taxes. They benefited enough from the trade that people like him were performing. The only money he paid them was in the form of bribes to the commanders of wormhole stations. After all, he needed to get to places fast and light speed just wasn’t fast enough. Another ten days travel and he would reach a wormhole station, one whose commander was a close ‘acquaintance’ of his.
Although the money was good in what he did, the risks were also high. Non-authorized inter-planetary trading was a serious crime. But then again, eighty per cent of trade in the Yinhexi was on the black market. The ones who did get authorization were those rich enough to bribe top-level officials. They usually got contracts with the military but they were more often than not confined to one empire. He didn’t have that problem. He could go wherever he wanted. All he needed was the right connections.
David, his long-time friend and business partner, entered the bridge. Even without seeing him, Bongani knew David was anxious for some reason or other from the shorter, heavier strides he tended to take.
“Another one of the cargo is ill. I think this low gravity is not good for them. Perhaps we should up the gravity on the ship.”
“Screw the cargo. I’m not going to be forced to move around in high gravity on my ship just because of cargo” answered Bongani.
The ‘cargo’ he was referring to was about two hundred Na’hk slaves. These no-so-bright aliens lived on a planet with more than twice the gravitational pull of Earth. Hence, they were short but sturdy, ideal for working in high-risk mines. And that was exactly where he was taking them, to a highly volatile mineral mine in Atlantic Alliance territory. If he was caught by the Pacific Federation smuggling their subjects as slaves to the Atlantic, he would probably be given the death sentence on the spot.
He knew what he was doing was wrong, immoral. But guilt was something that he threw away long ago, during the Mediterranean War with the Atlantic Alliance. The southern rim of the Mediterranean was controlled by the Peace Alliance while most of the northern rim was Atl
antic territory. But the Atlantic, much like the Crusades to Jerusalem, wanted total control of the whole Mediterranean, the birthplace of their so-called civilization. They tried to invade Maghreb but the Peace Alliance was not just going to stand there and let them walk in their back yard. The Afrikan Republic also dreaded sharing a border with the aggressive Atlantic Alliance and backed the Peace Alliance.
He was a young lieutenant back then, squad leader in Afrika’s feared Cetshwayo unit, or more famously known as ‘the Black Berserkers’. The drug-induced battle rage made him do terrible things; things that he couldn’t control but nonetheless clearly remember himself doing. When the Afrika-Peace forces managed to push the Atlantic back and even go as far as invading Sicily, the Atlantic Alliance made a formal apology and gave them the excuse that a ‘renegade unit’ had been responsible for the attacks on North Africa. The war that lasted just a few weeks was over, but not for him. The neutrality of the Afrikan Republic meant that he had very few opportunities to use his newfound talent of killing.
He became a mercenary and went from planet to planet, killing aliens and humans when he needed to. The money was good and fighting seemed to be the only way to block out the image; a young, blond girl, no more than ten years old. Her Sicilian parents had been killed by the invading Berserkers and she was weeping beside their lifeless bodies. But the drug robbed him of all remorse. Although it made him fearless, painless and gave him sharper perception, it also made him do things that he would never have done in a sane state. He left her lifeless body to join her parents and went off to continue his killing spree.
